Position: 45:40:75N 18:23:70W
Another windy day. After I wrote last night’s blog, the
wind picked up some more so at midnight we put the 3rd reef in, and
rolled the jib down to handkerchief-size.
The main with 3 reefs is about the size of Will’s Enterprise mainsail (if he
can remember what that looks like).
We were still crashing along at over 7 kts and I don’t think either of us
got much sleep.
Today has been grey, wet and lonely
with no sea life whatsoever. In
fact it feels like a very different ocean to the first three days of whales,
dolphins, turtles and seabirds. Tonight just after sunset I noticed a light less
than half a mile away. It turned
out to be a yacht going the other way.
I raised him on the VHF and it was a 45 ft Dutch boat called “Saltram”
who was singlehanding across to Halifax.
I must tell Poul & Kyra on ”Yara” to look out for him. He hadn’t seen me – I think he was only
looking at AIS targets and as we don’t have an AIS transponder, we didn’t show
up on his screen – a great lesson in not relying on the technology! Anyway, it
was a fluke to pass so close when we are still 400 miles from the nearest
land.
On our “race” up the Spanish/French
coast, we are now at the same latitude as La Rochelle, so we really nearly are in home
waters! We did 150 miles yesterday
which is great for Nutmeg. The wind
has gradually veered round to the SE, so we are now bashing away on a
close-hauled course with spray continually covering the boat and the decks
awash. Everything is damp down
below and it is very hard to sleep as you get lifted and thrown out of your bunk
on every wave. It is so dark outside you can't even see the bow of the
boat!
That’s all for
now.