Friday 16th July
Vaquero
Fri 16 Jul 2010 12:59
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My position Friday 16th July at 1200UTC is 48
52.1N 8 13.1W
The shipping forecast came through on Navtex in the
early hours of this morning stating that for area Sole, gale now ceased.
My first reaction was, what gale? Until I realised that I had been running
before the strong winds with just the tiny storm jib set, and yes I suppose
it was quite windy and rough but the seas were only 20 - 25ft so it wasn't
really a proper gale. Lying to the drogue in 30ft seas with a 9 gusting 10
was a proper gale so this last blow, although promising a 9, never materialised
into a bad one. I suppose you just get used to the bad weather after a
while.
Today is almost perfect, a NW6 and a tolerable sea
running, broadreaching with two reefs and the No 4 making good speed without the
violent motion aboard that I seem to have been getting
acclimatised to. And the sun is shining, although it feels much
colder all of a sudden and the thermals have reappeared during the night
watches. Never mind, the Lizard is only 140 miles away so I am much
looking forward to landfall. The bad part of approaching land is the
sudden increase in shipping, and more tricky, the fishing fleet. So I am
now sleeping in short bursts with the radar and AIS set to warn me of anything
close. Over the last 24 hours there have been a lot of squally rainshowers
and as thee show up on the radar, I keep getting warning bleeps. Not
a problem, but they always seem to happen about five minutes after I have nodded
off! And the limited sleep seems to start me dreaming vividly
- this morning I awoke just before I was about to start eating a
magnificent supper of roast pork, crackling, roasties, fresh veggies out of the
garden and all the trimmings with a cold glass of Sauvignon
Blanc.......sigh! I had to make do with a boiled egg for breakfast, but no
soldiers - the bread had gone mouldy. And I can't even enjoy
my comfort food of chips, the deep fat fryer died some time ago, they just don't
make 'em like they used to. Like the laptop, it got inundated one night by
a big wave coming down the hatch.
And speaking of equipment failure, after nearly
4500 miles it's quite interesting to note what is still working and what
isn't. Perhaps this is not the time or place for a full debrief, but
I would say that it seems to me that there's a lot of expensive kit on the
market which frankly falls well short of what we should expect in terms of
longevity, reliablility and fitness for purpose.
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