Ensuenos/15 - Squalls, whales and a touch of the insane

Ensuenos
David Charity
Thu 9 Dec 2010 19:30
14:47.14N 46:29.27W
 
Dear Diary,
 
The crew are all surviving and spirits are high, albeit everyone looks a little weather beaten, sleep deprevated and unshaven, the language has become 'agricultural', while spurts of insanity are not uncommon. Ron singing a strange sailor's tune around 2am at the top of his voice or Bas skipping around in his y-fronts are probably the most noteworthy, although Dave's nest building and tourrets-esque, constant use of "Yes, Sir Jasper" are becoming a concern.
 
They say you should be careful what you wish for, and we wished for strong winds of the highestest order. And boy, are we getting them. For the best part of 4 days we have had winds up to 34 kts (GaleForce 6) and waves around 5m high. This is giving us what we need to make land by 15th Dec, a few days later than expected. But with it comes a few realisations, namely sleep is a luxury, hot drinks are hazardous and washing clothes impossible. Moreover, a bi-product of the strong winds are squalls. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of experiencing one of Mr Weather's adulascent children, think of it as a dark cloud that come out of nowhere, dumps terrential rain, increases and changes the wind direction, throws the contents and crew of boat in every direction, then buggers off leaving you to clean up the mess and feeling utterly spanked. Of course, the plus side is that it allows all the crew to run onto the deck with a bar of soap for their weekly washing session. I for one have learnt my lesson and will now only be wishing for strong rum punches of the fruity variety and a nice, hot bath.
 
Fish news. We still have caught no fish.
 
Wildlife Update! Ensuenos got frisky with its first beluga whale today. The 30ft-ish horny bugger spent the best part of 1.5 hrs creeping up on the boat from behind, then serenading us with displays of its white belly (thankfully that is all we could make out) as it came alongside, before retreating away to start it mating ritual all over again....so no different from a Saturday nigh out in the UK. We could all feel its frustration as it finally breached its final exhaustive breath of air before disappearing into the waves. You could almost hear the word "frigid" in the breeze.
 
Take care and stay tuned for another update shortly.
 
Roger, the cabin boy
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