Kotari blog
Kotari
Fri 4 Dec 2020 20:26
Updates:
- Carol has yet more bruises
- Wahoo is delicious
- Weather forecasts are shite (warning - may contain ranting)
- Covid’s shite (may also contain ranting)
- Contact with other boats is nice after so long!
- Who knew the Atlantic could be so warm! (We went swimming)
——
3rd December - apparently day 11 or 12 depending if we include the starting day of Sunday… this should give you an air of onboard discussions!
Last night was gentle, calm, but slow… I wouldn’t know I slept through it but the log doesn’t lie and so this morning we had the engine on again as the 4 knots of wind and 3 knots of boat speed didn’t quite cut the mustard!
The forecast that we get through the ARC which gives us a mostly text based description of what the weather is up to has been about as useful as a soluble sailing jacket/foam keel/paper mast… you get the idea … however the grib files (Grib stands for gridded binary data, basically a small file with weather info on it that can be viewed on lots of different platforms/software) we’ve been downloading to view on the laptop each day, although they started excellent and seemingly spot on for accuracy, have become considerably less reliable!
Today, for example, the forecast had us in a building SE wind around 10-14 knots so a lovely beam reach (wind 90º off the bow) as we head SW.. initially we had about 5 knots of wind from the SW so straight on the nose which then became 10-13 knots of NE wind… so 180º degrees in the wrong direction.
I realise that predicting the wind and weather is often a mystic dark art, the way the Met Office in the UK gets around this is by stating that conditions will be “Variable”. In other words, your guess is as good as mine! If the written forecasts could tell us that the area we are in has unsettled and unpredictable winds etc then we would know to avoid it etc… luckily I’d written off there info about a week ago but still… anyway!
Columbus never had to put up with this s***
I jest
——
Big news today was having first contact in a week with another vessel and we were that vessels first contact all trip! Sandvita, owned and skippered by Lars, a Swedish wizard of the sea called us up after the 1200 position report when he realised we were only 13 miles apart. He complained that his fisherman was on strike complaining it was too hot and they’d only caught 2 Mahi-mahi.
We have also as a fleet been informed that upon arrival in St Lucia, we have to have more PCR test and quarantine for 48 hours on arrival.. this is fairly s*** news and has about as much science behind is as….. well as every government guideline seems to have behind it. The fact that we were all tested negative before leaving and (will) have had 2 weeks + at sea makes it seem rather like a waste of time… but hey ho what can you do!
Sandvita and us were stating the real drama of the situation is that as we are “dry” (booze-free) boats, when we arrive in St Lucia after +/-3000 miles at sea and not be able to have a celebratory drink or too many… this is an issue!
Gahh me and my first world problems! How is December in the UK? Muhaha
——
Eta St Lucia if all goes to plan now I’ve updated for Wednesday 9th!
Need to dig out the charts as it’s going to be nerve wracking having less than 5000m under the keel!
——
Dinner this evening was Marks late evening catch from yesterday of Wahoo, which we’ve read when fresh is some of the most £££ fish on the market!
It was captain fantastic, Richard cooked it in excessive butter with Raz el Hanout and served with a couscous (so nice they named it twice) salad!
Probably the best meal so far!
——
0430 - 2/12
Competition wise things have chilled out a fair bit since we’ve used the engine. The more you motor, the more your punished which is fair and we’ve had a to do a fair chunk now. Probably 12 hours in total although I don’t have the figure to hand. We have enough fuel to motor about 320 miles on a full tank with a safety margin, we have 850 or so to go so in case the wind really does pack its bags we need to be sparing!
Right, the wind is up to its usual/changable tricks and going to see if we can keep us moving more than 5 knots!
——
Note from the editor RD
Our fisher men are not on strike so over night we caught another Barracuda which was set free, however during our spinnaker hoist another obliging Mahi Mahi hit the line and stayed around long enough to be landed. Amazing colouring and fairly respectable flavour, so thats lunch sorted. Almost immediately another fish took the lure but in this case it broke the line and took our favourite fluro yellow with it.
——
With a morning spinnaker hoist we were excited to get some speeds in excess of 5 knots! We so far however have been disappointed as the swell has been increasing, wind decreasing and backing (anti-clockwise) behind us… all in all resulting in a flappy spinnaker even when beam reaching. Frustrating comes close but not close enough!
Friday was supposed to be the day we make good ground according to the forecast. Downloading a new grib now to see if it resembles anything realistic to what we have now!
Also excited to get the positions and see if anyone is within comms range today for a chat and a catchup!
——
20.10 - 4/12
So, new updates:
- Another Fish - Mahi-mahi (consumed for dinner)
- updated weather brought bad news
- sun burn was the order of the day
So no chats today with other boats! There seems to be a line of us from NW to SE all attempting to get past this rather large area of no wind!
We’ve opted to try and head SW still to break through into the Easterlies that will carry us to the finish.
Just as we were dropping the spinnaker this morning the fishing line went again and Richard hauled in his first Mahi-Mahi and Carol did all the prep to get it in the fridge for dinner! They’re quite the amazing colour.
New weather ultimately said that yesterdays “Friday will be good wind, go fast and west” has been snaffled out of existence… The no wind zone has conveniently engulfed us and is at least 50nm in any direction, we sailied at 4-5 knots with the spinnaker up for a few hours until the wind dropped off to about 2-3 knots and the swell was collapsing our sails with every swing before we succumbed once again to the Iron headsail!
Oh how it drones.
We are ploughing through the books/audiobooks/podcasts like their going out of fashion. Eddie did some laundry while Carol and I poured buckets of sea water over us to keep us cool.
Eddie, bless, is a tad on the Irish complexion side of things. An hour doing his laundry has made my small dose of sun burn look (literally) pale in comparison!
Mahi-Mahi for dinner was beautiful in salt/pepper/butter with a cabbage and onion based salad!
Followed by not quite off yogurt with Carols home made brownies! We really are spoiled
——
The Plan as of now
Motor SW to pick up the Easterly winds ASAP (hopefully tomorrow morning/midday) and get that spinnaker out of the bag!
With the last 48 hours being quite frustrating and slow it is making us all quite excited about getting to St Lucia for some Beers and Rum ’n’ Ting (in quarantine) with the other boats!
Hope all is as well as can be in the world and looking forward to catching up with everyone in real time by next week!
RP out