Getting to know the Pacific
Skye Blue sailing
Stephen and Malene
Mon 5 Jun 2023 17:58
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Day 3,
see, after we left you yesterday, we downloaded a new
grib-file for weather forecast. That showed a patch of high winds coming in -
Force 6-7 around midnight for 3 or so hours. We were like, come on Pacific, give
us a break! So we tacked towards west as that was now the better direction for
the approaching winds. It would still be on the nose, so preparing
mentally for another rough night. Then the winds picked up to a 15 knots on
the nose - spent the best part of an hour sorting out sails and reefing as of
course the main halyard had got stuck inside the mast when we dumped it last
night. Stephen's brute force got it lose - phew! Stuck in a F6 with a main stuck
half way up the mast is not a great day in the office! Emptied the bilges
after the heavy rain - it was still raining but just to make sure to
go into the weather with clean bilges - and there was a fair amount of
diesel! It had been leaking out of the top of the port tank - could have
run the engine for 5 minutes on that! cushions off now in a heap on top of all
the other heaps the heeled over sailing had created so far.... dried up the
worst and still not quite sure where the leak came from. Jubilee clips had been
tightened. And dipstick. This all while Stephen was upstairs in the rain sailing
in the squalls.
That's when the storm petrel landed on the deck. It is
not a good omen when a storm petrel decides a boat is better than the sea. And
it wasn't shy either - it was sitting by the companionway and
I could crawl over it without it moving. It had a good look downstairs but
luckily decided against that option. Probably the smell of diesel put it
off!
We were sitting having a wee break in the prudent
preparations for a windy night, talking about that we needed to learn to sleep
through squalls as this weather pattern might just continue for a long time,
when the storm petrel came wandering down the cockpit to roost next to Stephen's
feet on the cockpit floor. We thought: s..., we are in for a rough night!....
And the weather that had just passed was really meant to be lighter winds so
given grib-files out here can be less than accurate we thought we better brace
ourselves for something more like F 7 than 6.
Reheated leftovers downstairs hiding from the rain,
getting the warm clothing ready, tidying away anything heavy that might just
fall over and then on to a 3 on, 3 off watch and agreeing that around midnight
we would both be up.
The winds never materialised, and we had a lovely night
of good sailing in light winds - not fast as we kept the 3 reefs in the main -
but lovely, moon, stars, lightning at a fair distance and dry. Getting to know
the Pacific.
Well rested and in good form now new grib-file on the
way and manning up to clean the diesel out underneath our emergency water
bottles ;/ Leak is located, by the way! It was a bolt in the inspection cover
that had loosened ever so slightly. Cannot believe I didn't check that yesterday
- must have been very tired :D
005:25.8800N 82:56.9611W |
