Almost halfway there - Part 1
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 16 Nov 2007 18:02
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30:13.119N 68:07.753W
Not sure if this message got through on our first
try. The satellite phone email link is a bit fickle and it seems emails
larger than 10KB will not transmit. I've written several verbose blog
updates and they got caught in cyberspace. Here is my attempt to split
them up so they will go through.
Hmmmm....where to begin? Last night was
something, to say the least. Remember in Don's update yesterday he
mentioned 'we expect to see some strong winds tomorrow as a front is coming
through....". Well, they showed up on Bill's and my watch Thursday
night. It went something like this...
Bill was on watch from 6pm to 10pm and I hung out
with him in the cockpit to help out and to do my best to keep my dinner down
(hence Don's update to the blog last evening). In case anyone cares, I was
successful in keeping my dinner down thanks to Don and Bill for waiting on my
every want and need so that I didn't have to descend into the rocking cabin from
hell throughout the entire evening.
Anyway, back to the story...
The wind started to build at about 5pm. Of
course this is also about the time that it got dark. According to our log
book the wind speed went from 20 knots at 5pm to 24, then 26, then
30 by the time it got to be midnight. This wouldn't be so bad except
that we were trying to head southeast and the wind was initially from
the southwest, but kept shifting more to the south. All of that means
we were sailing very close to the wind. [Non-boater translation: we were
doing the best we could to sail in a direction very close to that which the wind
was coming from.] Result: much crashing through waves, rocking about
and huge wind.
Just a quick side note about crashing through waves
and what that means to Bill in particular.
Bill's cabin is in the bow [non-boater
translation: front] of the boat. Usually a very nice place to be when
at anchor or when tied to a dock. However, when underway, the bow of the
boat is quite noisy (water rushing by) and if traveling into the wind and into
the waves, the motion of the bow of the boat can be quite wild.
Picture a boat sailing fast into the wind and waves - water flying everywhere as
the bow crashes down wave after wave, occasionally catching air and landing with
a giant 'BOOM' on the downside of a wave (something we try to avoid, by the
way). Now picture the inside of that front cabin - bouncing not just a
little, but moving up and down wildly several feet at a time. Now
picture Bill attempting sleep in this cabin. We figure he has levitated
unintentionally at least a dozen times and will arrive home with enough
bruises for his wife Kathie to wonder if we beat him regularly.
To be continued in 'Almost halfway there - Part 2.
Anne |