Day 5 – Wed 25/4/12 – Flights of Fancy – 29:47.0N 64:09.6W

Watergaw
Alan Hannah/ Alison Taylor
Wed 25 Apr 2012 10:15

Since yesterday, we have seen no better than 7 knots of wind, and usually closer to 4/5 knots from all directions, so sailing has been impossible if we are to arrive in Bermuda this month. The engine has been doing sterling work, and in some ways it is more relaxing than sailing and sleep is easier despite the engine throb and the propeller thrash. It is much less pleasant, though and we wish we could return to the fine sailing weather we started with.

 

Another benefit of motoring is that timing is more predictable, and it would be a surprise if we were not making a landfall tomorrow morning. The forecast is much the same today, but from the North West and we are about 150 miles south of the island, so another 24 hour run should do it. We are beginning to dream about a whole night of uninterrupted sleep, a dinner not out of a dog bowl, a shower where you do not have to hold on whilst soaping up and avoiding slipping as the tidal wave of water sloshes round the shower tray. Ali also dreams about drying her hair in a style which it retains for more than 30 seconds (she says every day on a boat is a bad hair day!). As yet, these are just tempting visions of a life one more round of watch keeping away…..

 

Birds and Bees  

 

Ali found a bee on the cockpit seat yesterday, which seems a bit odd 200 miles from anywhere. It must have boarded before we left the BVI’s and has been travelling hopefully (like us). It did not survive the crossing, though. We have a veritable trove of spiders that go with us everywhere, and appear able to scuttle somewhere protected and eat their stashes, whilst waiting on the next landfall and new insect life invading us. How they hold on in a Force 7/8 is a bit of a mystery. We wonder how they are adjusting to the temperature drop, since we are finding it a challenge.

 

Seagulls are the pest of most yachtsmen and motor boaters, squatting and squitting on boats in marinas or on moorings. Lots of folk adopt techniques to try and keep them at bay, which include festooning the boat with used CD discs spinning in the wind, or planting a plastic owl (they look most unlike owls to me) on some raised bit of superstructure – these do not seem t work that well, and we have seen gulls perched on the owls’ heads. Watergaw has not been left in a marina for long, so we have only had the occasional splat from a gull on our masthead. We had more trouble on one occasion from starlings, when we were in Liverpool marina far a weekend at the wrong time of year. There were thousands of them, and whatever they were eating (elderberries? in Liverpool?) was giving them gripe: It was impossible to keep them away, and the stains they left on the canvas work and deck were nigh impossible to remove.

 

Mostly, though, our experience of birds has been positive. Sailing around the UK, Scandinavia, France, Spain and Portugal, we are on major migration routes and offshore you often get a temporary squatter taking a breather en route north or south. Many times it happens when the rain is lashing down and they are as fed up as we are. They look for a landing place, which is not easy for a perching bird on a rolling and jumping boat, and plop down for a break. Regularly drookit and tired, they hang around for a few hours till their strength returns and then disappear.

 

We have not seen any in the Caribbean (not a major migration route?) until we were adopted for a while yesterday. A beautiful little bird that looked like a swift or sea swallow circled us for an hour whilst making up his mind if we were friend or foe. He flew gracefully in and out of the waves, up and around the rigging sizing up the prospects. Then we had another hour of entertainment whilst he tried to land. He tried the boom several times, but seemed not to understand that the sail was going to knock him off his perch the next time we rolled. He tried the guard wire on port and starboard, settled a few times and sat wobbling back and forward precariously. He could not get to grips with the rolling and bucking, so would turn 180 degrees as if that might make it better, and then back round since it did not. He also had a time on the cord that secures one of Ali’s patent hatch rain covers, and he could grip this with his claws.

 

He was fairly bold, and sat outside the cockpit whilst we ate dinner (which was a chicken risotto, so he may have been attending the funeral of a feathered friend), chirping away from time to time. It was raining and he looked cold and tired, but disinclined to eat or drink anything we offered. As it got dark, he settled down and we saw him in the early night watches moving from one perch to another. Where he really wanted to go, however, was down into the cabin. He kept eyeing the hatchway, and checking up on us, as if he wanted us out of the way to allow him some warmth and comfort below.

 

This has happened to us a few times, when birds have come aboard and flown through the hatchway when we were not careful. I suppose it is the darker interior and warmth they are looking for, but we have become wary of giving them any chance of taking up residence. Getting them back out is always difficult and stressful for the bird, but cleaning up is even harder! On the River Exe, we found a homing pigeon on the aft deck that stayed with us for a couple of days (and did eat our offerings). He managed to slip below when we were not looking and the consequences were traumatic!

 

Our little friend appears to have disappeared overnight, and is nowhere to be seen this morning, unless he has managed to find the forward cabin when our backs were turned….

 

Oh for the wings…

 

Watergaw