Every cloud has a silver lining?
Chiscos - Atlantic Cruise
John Simpson
Mon 21 May 2012 12:11
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36:52.08n 052:02.33w Er...no. All the clouds this morning brought
with them NE winds (ie. COLD and precisely on the nose, something
we're not used to yet!) and heaps of rain. We thought it was probably just
a squall but 5 hours later - its still raining and we're still
sailing away from the rhumb line, a reminder we're not in
the Caribbean anymore! Until then we were bowling along under goose
wing very nicely in 20 knots of westerly
wind heading straight for our waypoint.
Some good news:
1) We're not last anymore, hurrah!
2) We are no longer on starboard tack - no
creaks!! (Before we tacked onto port, the creaking was still driving
us insane so when the drilling didn't work, the cooking oil came
out. Lubrication was apparently the best solution but only
lasted about half an hour before the process had to be repeated)
Some not so good news:
Chiscos and crew are not used to so much rain
and sea spray on the decks! We thought we did a great job before we
left BVI resealing all the windows and shrouds where we could see that
the sealant had perished in the sunlight. There's nothing like
sailing 1800 miles across the North Atlantic to make you realise
exactly how many holes in the deck are capable of letting in
water! We (ie. Super Skipper Simpson) have spent yesterday and
today resealing hatches on the bow, around the mast and all around the
spray hood. This job requires a steady hand and the stuff
needs to be applied on dry surfaces and left to dry for 24 hours - so ideally
not a job to be done on a wet boat leaping around in the sea, with
waves crashing over you and rain pouring down. We seemed to have
stopped most of it anyway!
Some awful news:
It's officially cold! Since leaving the BVI on 5th
May we have come around 1300 miles north. To us that means that in
the short space of just over 2 weeks we have gone from wearing
bikinis/shorts in the day and short sleeves at night, to gradually
increasing the layers to include: jumpers, trousers, jackets (all
waterproof, of course), socks, shoes (shoes?? some of us haven't worn shoes
since November!) and I feel that last nights addition of the woolly
hat means that we can declare it's definitely getting rather
chilly. There was even talk this morning of maybe having to use the
heater before we get back, oh dear!
Yesterday we decided that we would have a
celebratory half-way dinner tonight consisting of traditional Swiss
rosti courtesy of Corinne, followed by apple crumble (if
we didn't make half-way we would celebrate reaching our
waypoint). Based on our performance so far today we will
not be half way and neither will we be anywhere near our waypoint, yet
we will still be having a celebration as the rostis
are already prepared and the apples will be rotten
tomorrow!
Mikaela
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