Day Six
Tripled
Mon 13 Jun 2011 00:44
My last blog slightly underestimated the night we had. After James and I
went to bed at 2am the wind got up and for the rest of the night we were
sailing in force 7/8 with huge waves. So when I spoke about erring on the
side of caution with 3 reefs in, it was definitely a good thing we had!
Needless to say, none of us slept well at all. The winds stayed up at at
least 30 knots until after 6am. When I looked at the emails, mum had sent
one to Jilli last night saying 'very very windy night gale force winds HELP!!' A good thing I had
sent a more upbeat blog at the same time or else she might have been a bit
worried! Gradually from 6am the winds began to die over the day, as forecast,
and we have now been motoring for the past few hours.
It has been such a grey, drizzly day, with very little visibility, so we
have had the radar on all day and have stayed mostly indoors. We took the
advantage of having the engine on this evening to put the heating on which
did help to dry out some of our stuff.
Just over an hour ago, James spotted a ship on the radar, heading straight
for us, in our direct path. She came up on the AIS with her boat name so I
radioed her and got a reply from a nice French man who confirmed that they
had seen us and would pass 1.2 miles away. We watched closely on the radar
and out to sea, and not once did we see a single light, or any sign that the
ship existed. That is how bad the visibility is right now! In conditions
like this there is virtually no point in sitting outside so we are now back
down below keeping an eye on the radar.
Spent the day catching up on sleep, reading, and playing several rounds of a
card game called 'Canasta'. Mum came up from a shocking 0 points in the
first round to win overall. A very good thing as she gets very angry when
she loses at cards and it is always good to keep skipper happy!!
I know a lot of you who have been at sea are now on shore - I'm keeping
emailing you so you don't think we've disappeared and got lost at sea, but
if satphone minutes etc are running out then please just email us and we
will take you off the list!!
Forecast is for light winds tomorrow, and we are praying for clear skies and
sunshine for the first time since we left the Azores.