3rd June 2008 - Somewhere else in the Bay of Biscay

Bali Hai
Neal Stow
Tue 3 Jun 2008 16:29
After the first night's gentle introduction to night sailing it was all change last night with strong winds and gusts of up to 30 knots.  In fact last night was a bit of a disaster all round.  Enjoying a lovely sail in the evening, cruising along at 8 knots, we overheard Jacky on Arwen saying how they had put in two reefs on account of the black clouds that they could see in the distance - for a quiet night.  What rubbish we said, does she not know that night is coming and all clouds look black at night, so on we went with full sails up.  Well, after spending forever putting in our reefs at two in the morning in the pitch dark, with rocky seas and howling winds, I will now look on Jacky as the all knowing Weather God and will bow down before her. 
 
In the morning most of the crew were exhausted from the night's exertions.  The exception being John who managed to sleep through it all, oblivious to all that was going on.  To make matters worse we found that Arwen (with her two reefs) was now twice as far ahead of us than she had been the previous evening and also in our efforts to avoid the shipping we were now getting closer to New York than to Finistere.
 
It is now late morning on 3rd June.  It is nice and sunny with 10 knots of breeze and we are heading back towards Spain.