This, they will not tell you part 2

Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Sun 2 Dec 2012 06:07
There is this picture about the yacht going transatlantic, the wind from behind, the sun is shining and you go down and fix a meal.
As you open your lovely compartmernts to get some plates out it all looks so nice and orderly. The boat is shining and so are your teeth.
Well not on our boat anymore. We are having 4 meter waves and with that comes a lot of Salsa, so to speak.
So somebody goes nuts about bottles moving around in one compartment and stuffs a pillow into it to make it quite.
When I open our lovely organised storage for plates I am now met by a big pillow first.
In the bathroom I will find small balls of socks with tothbrushes and so on. Oh yeah in the chart table there a big sweater on top of everything....
So when a boat comes to port after a long journey, check whats behind the scenes...
And also you get to know the skipper by looking at the first drawer in the navigation table.
 
How was yesterday?
Our Gastro Enteritis (kräksjuka) is giving up the last, we think/hope. Andreas was really well last night, I'm getting there but have no apetite.
Our spinnacker boom managed to bend the rail on the mast and then jump out so we had to work on foredeck for about 2 hours.
Now we are sailing without spinnacker boom to sheet out the genua and have to use the mainsail as our.... mainsail.
Today I hope we can manage to repair the rail, it was getting dark and the seas are very tiring to work with.
 
Yesterday  morning we had winds that where reaching 35 knots and it was not gusts, so the sea started to build up very fast again.
For the first time we actually had a wave that broke just on our aft and sprayed a big amount of water in the cockpit. Luckily we had anticipated this so there was only a half a hatch opening for the water. So we got some drops inside the boat, but the cockpit was a bathtub for 10 seconds (amazing how fast they empty) When the sea get's that big we all wear lifejackets and harness even in cockpit.
Ellinor can work easily under deck now and since it was important to get Andreas eating, just anything, she started to bake cinamon rolls (Kanelbullar). So in this rolling weather a great smell of newly baked bread  came out of Salsa.
In the late afternoon the wind calmed down to 20knots and the seas with it.
That is really a new experience: we are here, nowhere to hide, just live with it, and for the first time we can sea the sea. The paces, the rolling wavetranes that passes by. Nothing lasts for ever.  There will be a change soon.
Right now we are speeding ahead towards the west in 25-30 knots of tradewind. It is a very strong trade.
If it lasts all the way we will have a fast passage.
But who nows what nature has in for us.