Saturday 12th June – Day 6 At Sea (Lini’s Journa l)

Brindabella's Web Diary
Simon Williams
Wed 23 Jun 2010 16:39
The morning GRIB files now show the next approaching low. It looks
a bit of a beasty and although we’re heading for Africa at present we
have no plans to head further north until it passes. The day was
bright and sunny but with a definite nip in the air: It continues to
feel like autumn. Night watches have been cold and wet taking me a
good fifteen minutes to don four layers and waddle on deck like a
Michelin Man. Sleep remains impossible in rolling seas and desperately
tired today I have not been my best! Good job I enjoy a challenge eh!
I surfaced from a fidgety hour or so in the bunk before lunch with a
colossal headache and feeling extremely irritable. I try to focus on
the delightful rewards that await us in the Azores and for now am
grateful that as Si takes his afternoon snooze the W F5-7 winds are
pleasantly from the quarter and not on the nose making life infinitely
less bumpy………
As forecast the favourable winds did not last, decreasing and
veering and preventing us from staying on course. As I tried to sleep
after supper we didn’t so much roll as flip from side to side with
that horrendous crack as the headsail flogged, crashing from cars as
they flipped over with varying tension of the jib sheets and clunking
from every cupboard as items became airborne then returned to a
different place. I came on watch at 10.30pm feeling numb; it’s ages
now since we’ve had any decent sleep. Si was only briefly in the bunk
before announcing conditions were intolerable: We furled the sail and
fired up the engine.