Better late than never

Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sun 25 Oct 2009 12:00

25th October 2009

 

At last I have got around to writing something for our blog. 

I feel that this is really the start of my adventure as we left Gibraltar at 08.30 this morning as soon as the marina staff unlocked the marina gate.

The previous two weeks were just a settling in to life on board and I think I was still feeling like it was a bit like our other two week holidays we have had previously.

So today is the real thing. I have been thrown straight in to having to take a watch, I am paired up with my long suffering husband Stewart and Craig is doing his watches with Angus our two right hand men.

My watches are 08.00 till 12.00 then off 4 hours, on again 16.00 – 20.00, 24.00 – 04.00, 08.00 -12.00 etc

This will be my first ever night sail doing a watch - what have I let myself in for? I have no idea.

To start the day after getting out of the marina we put the main sail up and motored out of Gibraltar as there was not a lot of wind. When the wind did pick up, out went the Genoa , off went the engine and along came the dolphins. A pod of them raced by, but they seemed to be on a mission to catch their breakfast as only a few came over to have a look at us and play on our bow before they shot off to catch up with their mates.

The day was beautiful with clear skies so I nipped below and got my essential sailing gear on, my bikini and sun cream.

We headed across to the African coast and followed it in a westerly then southerly direction. We were in among a lot of big ships so I really had to keep my eyes open and learn not to just watch out for boats that are right around us but to watch the bigger ones in the distance as they travel fast and are soon an issue to us and where we are going.

After lunch and when I was off watch I went for a proper sun bath and sleep on the side deck, this is the life.

When I was back on watch later in the afternoon another much larger pod of dolphins went racing past us, it seemed like there were at least a hundred of them maybe more and again it seemed like they were chasing something or had an appointment somewhere as only four or five came over to the boat to check us out and then rushed off at high speed to catch the pod up again.

The day soon past by and it was time for dinner, thankfully my hardened sailor/husband was very keen to take over the galley duties to give me more time to get my sea legs as I am now feeling a wee bit tender and don’t want to push my luck in the galley. What a nice man he is, I think I will keep him. When dinner of fish pie was ready we ate below at the saloon table. I only ate a small amount but it tasted very good.  Again I was let off galley duties and went straight to bed to get some sleep before my midnight four hour watch.

So this is my first night sail and night watch.  I was tenderly woken up by Stewart and got my warm gear on for the night watch, not something I would walk down Inverness high street in, but very warm and cosy.  When I went up on deck the night sky was enough to take your breath away, it was so clear with millions of stars, a glorious sight indeed.

What I found very strange was that by 12.30 the moon was very low in the sky and a beautiful red glow along  the horizon, then by 12.45 it was gone and we just had the stars to watch with the odd shooting star for a bit of a change. This is not what I expected,  I thought the moon always stayed out all night. I guess this is just the beginning of the things that I will see that I had not expected or never thought about before. What an adventure is before me. I can’t believe it has finally started.

I must admit that I was not that much of a help to my watch comrade, even thought there was plenty of shipping traffic to watch out for.  I was a bit of a light-weight, feeling a bit queasy.  Stewart assures me that tomorrow I will have my sea legs and this will be a distant memory.  I hope that this is true,  I want to believe him, so that I can be a useful watch companion.

My night watch ended at 04.00 and I was very thankful to be able to go below to my cosy bed and curl up to the welcoming rocking motion of our wonderful boat on the dark blue seas.