Noon Position: 03:05.4N 025:22.1W
Noon to Noon Run: 153miles (mostly under
engine)
Date:
7 December 2009
There have been certain aspects of our first
Transatlantic crossing which have come as a surprise. First of all the waves:
where are they? We are now almost
slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and the waves are no different to
what one might expect crossing Lyme Bay in a moderate breeze. OK, so the wind
has never been strong enough to throw up big waves, but where is the
ever-present long Atlantic swell we had heard so much about? It’s certainly not
here.
Secondly, we were expecting to sense the enormity of the
ocean; to feel like an insignificant pinprick in this vast expanse of water. But
actually we don’t. We look around us and we see a flat disc of water. We are at
its centre and this is our world. But our world extends only to the horizon and
that isn’t that far away. It’s a bit like looking up into the night sky and
sensing that all the stars are positioned on the surface of a celestial globe
around us and that that celestial globe is the finite boundary of the universe.
It is only when one starts to think about the infinite universe rather than
accepting the celestial globe as its limit that one starts to feel the
insignificance of ones own being. Certainly the lack of shipping has something
to do with it. When you see a ship appearing from over the horizon in front of
you and disappearing over the horizon behind you, the illusion of one’s limited
disc-like world is shattered. With lots of shipping the fact that there IS
something beyond one’s limited horizon is constantly being brought home to you.
But here there is little or no shipping to remind you.
The third surprise is less philosophical. We had all
expected the Doldrums to be muggy and windless, but we had expected to be
sitting beneath blue skies under the unrelenting heat of the tropical sun. We
held an ambition to sail all the way to
Brazil without
turning the engine on, being powered by the trade winds but drifting more slowly
through the Doldrums, looking out for the occasional squalls and reducing sail
whilst they passed. Well, it’s not like that at all. Since we entered the
Doldrums yesterday morning we have hardly seen any sun at all. Much of the time
it has been drizzling with rain under a grey blanket of cloud, and the squalls
are frequent and violent. You can’t have any hatches or portholes open so down
below it is hot, airless and damp. It’s horrible. Sailing through the doldrums
would be a thoroughly unpleasant and extremely long-lasting experience. Most of
the time there is barely enough wind to get the boat going. What little wind
there is drifts about from every direction which would mean constant adjustments
to the sails. One would be a sitting duck for every squall that came along,
during which one would have to take down or reef all of the sails. It would be
murder. Now we understand why, in the days of sailing ships, the Doldrums drove
strong men mad. As a result the engine was running for the best part of 24 hours
and we are nearly through, thank God. So the Doldrums have been a horrible
experience, but “horrible” is comparative, and our comparison has been something
close to paradise, so let’s not feel too sorry for ourselves.
On first entering the Doldrums we simply accepted the
inevitability of constant drenchings during the squalls, but we have since
learnt that most of them can be avoided. I had heard that one could use the
radar to see squalls. I was sceptical thinking that one would be looking at a
cluttered radar screen trying to interpret areas which were slightly more dense
than others. Not a bit of it. Well tuned, the squalls appear on the radar screen
as clearly defined, sharp edged masses which can be tracked and avoided as
easily as any ship. So latterly we have been slaloming round the squalls which
has reduced the discomfort of our transit.
We can’t wait to get back into the trade winds again and
start turning the corner for the long last leg to
Brazil.
P.S. Here’s a photo of the monster 4.2kg fish we caught a
couple of days ago, but we’re rather upstaged by the news that one of the other
boats has just caught a Yellow Fin Tuna 1.5 m long and weighing a staggering
55kg!!
