37N 19W Stunningly Dramatic
IDEA Sailing
Idea Yacht Racing Ltd
Sun 23 Jun 2013 12:40
Stunningly Dramatic: That's how one crew member described the scene we were treated to over the course of the night last night. With the moon rising full and bright the evening watches settled into their duties. As the sky darkened to full night and the cool (read that as really REALLY chilly) luminescence of the moons glow took command of the night sky washing everything in it's pale light, the clouds began to roll in. Building upon themselves and creating huge formations and monoliths in the sky. The back light of the moon painted the undersides darker than black and the heaping folds of the tops into infinite shades of grey.
Water on fire: Or so it seemed when you looked off into the distance to where the full moon managed to shine through the cloud cover to reflect off the water, giving it an undulating shimer of silvery light, making it appear that patches of the sea were burning with a low but very bright sliver flame.
Just awesome the painted sculptures in the sky.
Unfortunately despite the absolute beauty of it the roiling clouds brought with them bigger breezes, and the bigger breezes brought with them a lumpy water. As the night gave way to muted dawn, you could see the ocean streaked with white caps on the procession of ocean waves marching at, under and around us destined to points unknown. In the small spaces of your mind you can almost imagine that a few of these waves might just end on the beaches of Barbados from wence we came so many days ago.
IDEA is currently heading just slightly to the left of the direct course to Gibraltar. That is for a few reasons: We are expecting the breeze to shift our course to the right later on and so we are settting up for that early so as not to have to make any drastic changes of course. Also it will keep us on the North side of the approches to the Pillars of Hercules, and safely out of the way of the shipping traffic pouring out of the Med.
And onward we continue. We are approximately 680 miles from our destination with a contrary wind of 20 -24 knots, so it's become just a little more uncomfortable up on deck. Not only are we battling the chill with multipul layers of clothing but now we have to rely heavily on our foul weather gear to keep the salt spray off and the damp away from our bodies. Being wet leaches body heat faster than anything and for us Caribbean kids (at this point all of us have been in the Caribbean long enough to call ourselves that (not necessarily kids, but you know what I mean) body heat is a hot commodity.
Yesterday afternon we had a bit of excitment as well. We passed another boat who looks to be traveling to the same place as we are. That's our guess at least: The on watch crew got so excited with their waving at the other boat they forgot to actually talk to them. HA fun and games in the ocean.
See you tomorrow.
TTFN - Ta Ta For Now
IDEA.