19:09.2S 172:59.8E Better today

Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Sun 19 Apr 2015 11:35
Yes yes, it is better today, no liquid freight
trains shoving us in the side, just normal trucks.
It's funny that the question arises, what did I
tell Andreas, how come mom could want me?
I never had to answer that question, Erika did it
for me, she said "dad TALKED mom into it! stupid!"
Not much to report, we are now all three boats
aligned aiming for the north shores of Aneityum, we try to keep the speed down
as we will
arrive in the dark. No meaning to do
that.
Tuesday morning is clear in.
We were fast yesterday and that might also give you
a picture on how wild it is to ride in hard weather, we did 190 nautical miles
in 24 hours.
This is the hard part to share, why not just slow
down? Or stop? There are even people that believe that we anchor at night when
on passage.
To sail with a 45 fot boat on the big ocean is like
setting up a tent in the forest. If you just throw up the tent you might find
that the ground leans in one direction and makes all of you roll down to one
side, or that you have big roots under your back, even worse it starts raining
and your tent is in a pit. The experienced scout knows how to look for a good
place where to set up the tent and gets a good night sleep.
To sail on the ocean is about getting to the other
side in time before the next bad weather hits your waters, but, and the hardest
thing to comprehend is that we have no protection whatsoever, closest land is 2
km from us, UNDER us.
So whe have to use tactics to make the journey as
fast and as comfortable as possible. That means for instance a game with speed
and waves. This is all very basic, but there is a
hard weather tactics and I think experience is the best teacher. But one thing
is the most important of all,
if something does not feel right or there is wear
and tear on the equipment, keep on experimenting till you fixed it! It is very
tiring to know you should take care of flapping sails and worse it will really
make you tyred if they brake because you did not do what you knew had to be
done.
Even better, stay home and read about crazy people
who do take on such journeys....
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