Small boats on great oceans.
Rhapsode
Fri 26 Nov 2010 14:03
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03 01 S 28 32 W
Small boats sailing great oceans are always going
to get a measure of discomfort and our smelly little boat is no
different.
The morning ablutions - showering, shaving and that
other business is as exhausting as running a half marathon. Holding on when
sitting down, balancing whilst trying to shave, disco-dancing when showering.
Even putting on a pair of shorts can be energy sapping. First trying to stand on
one leg, hopping in time to the boat's rolling and then catching your foot in it
before you crash to floor. Sitting down to perform this task is not
much easier either. Especially when the boat falls into a hollow and your
whole body levitates before gravity once again exerts itself.
Then there's the food - most meals these days seem
to be served a la work-surface with a hint of cabin floor for good
measure.
Can you imagine what the boys would make of it if,
when at home, I tipped their dinner over and then scraped it up off the
worksurface and floor, chucked in a bowl and gave it to them??!! They'd be out
of the door and off to the pizza parlour before I could say 'Bon Appetite! Here
they meekly say 'Thank you, Dad' and eat!
Then again, imagine what it would be like to
sit outside in the garden eating your dinner with someone throwing buckets of
cold sea water at you!
I can't help wondering whether I will ever again
enjoy a cup of PG Tips without it being half full of sea water!
It's an acquired taste.
The seas are now coming at us from a couple of
points forward of the beam. Mostly 3 metres in height but with an occasional
succession of steeped faced 4 metre seas thrown in for good measure. These ones
tend to tip the boat over to starboard as boat first meets wave. The sea then
washes over the deck on the starboard side and dumps part of itself in the
cockpit. A split second later the crest of the waves breaks on the port side and
again pours into the cockpit.
This is known as a 'double dunking'.
There is a gain for this pain tho'. Speed! Even
with a reef in the Genoa we are still going along at the breath-taking speed of
almost five knots! We could shake the reef out and actually make 5 knots but
then we would bang down harder on every wave we meet. Not good for sleeping,
eating, washing, drinking. cooking, reading or merely sitting and watching the
ocean roll by.
I much perfer to sit and watch the ocean roll
by.
Happy sailing.
P, M & A
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