Free firework display
'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'
Pete Bernfeld
Fri 16 Jan 2009 16:02
|
15:05.367N 51:35.702W
Noon position 16/01. Daily run 126.1nm
After about 30 hours of almost continuous squalls,
last night's crowning glory was an electrical storm which started about 2015 our
time, and went on for TEN HOURS! We took the usual precautions, switched
everything off, put the sat phone, spare GPS and handheld VHF into the oven (as
a makeshift faraday cage) and waited. The wind died away to almost nothing, then
slowly went round the clock, then gradually picked up. By now, we had wall to
wall 'electrical activity', but only about three actual lighting strikes into
the sea, roughly ten miles away each time. The wind thern picked up, but we left
all sails down and motored to allow the 'activity' to outpace us, which it
did.
Probably each of us vowed never to set foot in a
boat again at some point last night, but all things pass and today has been
quite pleasant, virtually no rain and a chance to dry the boat out. As I type
this at 4pm UK time, we have 446.5nm to run to Barbados. Last night might have
set us back by 24 hours, but after we've all had a good sleep and if the weather
continues settled we'll push on a bit. At the moment we're sailing much
undercanvassed to allow us to catch up on sleep.
All is well, but my word, what an exciting
trip!
|