6 days completed and likely 2 to go, towards Ria de Muros 42:21N 014:35W

Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Fri 11 Jul 2014 11:12
Start of day 7 Noon on Friday 11th July 2014.
Shortly after our last log skies opened up and we were able to start enjoying some occasional sunshine again as we continue to punch our way through heavy seas close-hauling mostly towards the E, where we hope to conclude this little passage fully intact! Sue is without her normal good appetite in these conditions when three hands are needed even to boil an egg for lunch. As for trying to eat an egg.... it takes some thinking about when you can't let go of the boiled egg, egg-cup, knife, spoon, toast or plate - for fear of where it'll land and mess it'll make! Our sense of humour prevails throughout 'cause it has to ........ and it's now 2 days since Sue left the protection of the inside of Ticketeeboo. Whilst I try and do a deck inspection every day, today Sue asked me not to go on deck so as always, I'm doing as I'm told otherwise I'd need full oilies and be fastened to the yacht throughout. It's difficult enough moving round the inside of our yacht so the thought of doing anything
on deck is not appealing. Cockpit is no problem. Deck-work could be exceedingly difficult and risky. Sitting at our nav-station on watch it's amazing to see 25T of yacht flying onto, through and off some of these waves. Whilst Mr average wave might be nearer to 2m some of 'em can be enormous. Most often we simply punch our way through oncoming waves, which end-up flowing down our lees-ide deck before joining the turbulent seas. From time to time the physics can be just right for a bigger wave to go under our bow and sometimes there is a wapping big valley next and guess what? Yep! Ticketeeboo climbs over the oncoming wave then, with little or nothing under us for few metres, we bow-dive into the void. Now, at that instant, if we're really luckey there can be a close 'follow-through' wave which hits us whilst our bow is at its lowest point. This makes life special because the nasty hidden wave now breaks absorbing our bow, anchor, pulpit, furlers and most of the pointy bit o' deck,
forcing itself as a blanket of deep water along our upper deck, crashing onto our for'd saloon windows. On odd occasions, the timing can be just perfect for the blanket of seawater to remain airborne long enough to come down on just about everything extending past our cockpit. That's a bit of a seawater drenching although it's stunning to see from inside our saloon, where it's nice and warm and dry!
Overnight was relatively uneventful. Neither of us fancied a big evening meal so we settled for Azorean cheeze, cured ham and the last of our apples (which have lasted remarkably well). Now we're in the 'last of 'em' lat/longitudes again! The outstanding difference last night was the moon, which shone wonderfully well, despite 40% clouds, gracing us with eerie moonlight until almost 0500 this morning. Twilight dawn following not much longer than an hour later. A welcome improvement on earlier nights!
We're now watching for the forecast 'backing of the winds' because we need to regain lost ground to our N, well ahead of our landward approach where NE winds will be at their strongest. The idea being we wanna be broad reaching as we approach Ria de Muros. Definitely not tacking into 30kn wind - that's a no no! This morning we started making just N of E, which was fine. Then mid-morning, when approaching a thick mattress of heavy cloud ahead the wind strengthened to F6 and no sooner had we put 3rd reef in our mainsl the wind dropped again and veered. No good for us because we're now steering S of E again and loosing more ground to our N. Hence, time to tack and head N/NNE. Whilst having our morning s & s's the wind eventually backed again heading us NW. Not what we want so now we're back to where we started with 2 reefs in mainsl and making N of E. Hopefully that's it for rest of today & tomorrow? As for the water-rollercoaster ride....... it's as strong and energetic as ever! Good f
un providing nothing needs doing on deck and not needing to move about the yacht too much.

In last 24 hours we've logged 147NM, are now 118NM closer to our destination, which is 248NM due E of us.



Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham callsign = m0hng
http://blog.mailasail.com/ticketeeboo
http://www2.winlink.org:8081/maps/positionReports.aspx?callsign=m0hng