Heading West first blog
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16:34.001N 29:46.448W Heading West first
blog 27th November
2014 Before I blog I
must say that we have finally been given permission to tell the world that I am
going to be a grandparents again. It has been killing me keeping this quiet but
Gemma and So here we are
second night at sea just completed and all is well. Peter’s grand children will
be pleased to hear that he has so far avoided being eaten by a shark, having
said that he is on mummy watch after lunch today and it is sausage casserole for
dinner so he may well be thrown to the sharks yet. Steve is running around like
the proverbial Duracell bunny, finishing off his mummy watch and cleaning all of
the onion skins from the saloon floor, more of that later. Tony is on watch and
has just seen a flying fish land on deck, Norma is writing a piece for the next
blog on night watches from the female perspective, and I of course, apart from
being the full time Master and Commander am avoiding all work and writing this
blog. So life at sea and how has it been treating
us: We finally got
away from the fuel berth in Mindelo at 1430 and headed straight out to sea. It
was strange but we didn’t realise just how much Mindelo had got us down as the
whole atmosphere on Spectra noticeably lifted when we motored out. I think Peter
summed it up perfectly when he said that he had found the place oppressive. It
was hard to put your finger on it, but you felt like you were being watched all
of the time. We never did manage to get the battery charger fixed, every time I
went back to the workshop it was come back in 2 hour, after three days you give
up don’t you? Even when I asked for the charger back it took them three hours
and I only got it then when I saw one of the marina staff walking onto another
boat with it under his arm and chased him
down. Anyway enough of
the moaning we have left, are on our way and all is well with the world. We had
a cracking sail down in between the islands and by early evening we were clear
of land and heading due west. The wind stayed at a steady force 4-5 until
midnight when it all went wrong. Within 10 minutes it dropped away and left us
wallowing in the swell and that’s the way it carried on all night. I thought the
mast was going to shake out of her at one point as we rolled and slammed in the
swell A hugely frustrating night
and I was on deck at some point during every shift as we gybed the pole, reduced
sails, raised them again etc etc etc. No one had much sleep and it was a
bedraggled crew that gathered for breakfast as we sailed a long at 1.5 knots the
following morning. But then along came the wind, it has now been blowing a
steady Force 6 for over 30 hours and we have been flying along. The last 24 hour
run was 173 miles which is pretty damn good. Being twitchy about any unusual
noises on board and there were a lot of them on the first night with all of the
rolling, I went into the second night pretty tired and hoping for a peaceful
night. I sleep in the saloon when we are sea as it is easier for the guys to
call me without disturbing Norma (and they are scared of waking her, but that’s
another story). No sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard a crackling sound. I
lay awake listening to this sound and convincing myself it was one of the
bulkheads cracking. So up I got and with a torch in hand stuck my head in very
locker in the saloon, no solution. I next thought it was a deck fitting so on
deck I went, life jacket and harness on to check the fittings, none loose. The
galley next, all of the cupboards checked, lots of rattles but no creaks. I then
decided to check the deck beams and shroud plates from inside as every time we
leant over and pressure came on the boat the cracking sound would happen. As I
passed through the saloon for the umpteenth time I bumped my head on the
vegetable net that we have hung from the saloon ceiling. Four dry onions rolled
across the hanging netting making a loud crackling sound as they shredded their
skins all over the floor. Two hours wasted and back to bed for me, lulled asleep
by the gentle crackle of dry onion skins falling on the saloon floor I
eventually had a good nights sleep. On the first
night a deck wash tap was knocked open at some point, probably hooked on
someone’s lifeline, and we lost a lot of fresh water before it was noticed and
so today is a bit of a marathon generator and water maker run to get the tanks
back full again. All is well with us we have all showered this morning and so it
smells all soapy down below and we are still averaging 6-7 knots, so
I will blog again in a couple of
days………………… Email: Spectra {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com No attachment or
pics please as this is a very low bandwidth satellite link and costs a small
fortune per minute for downloads and they block up my weather
reports. If you want to
send normal email pics attachment etc. Paul {DOT} russell732 {CHANGE TO AT} hotmail {DOT} co {DOT} uk and I will pick it up when I am on WiFi
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