Thursday 3rd December

Weyve
Kev and Jan Sherwood
Fri 4 Dec 2020 10:21

15:48.349N 45:01.784W

 

So far this trip hasn’t been anything like I imagined . The thing that has surprised me the most is  the weather . I was expecting pure downwind sailing from doorstep ( Mindelo ) to doorstep ( St Lucia ) but to date we’ve had everything but. Mostly it’s been 12 kn north easterlies , or  3kn all over the place mixed in with some south easterlies. Now , if you can be confident that it’s going to alternate between NE & SE there’s no problem , just set the Hydrovane to downwind and zig zag up and down the rhumb line to St Lucia but it’s not that simple as the weather forecasts have been far from accurate on a local scale ( our local that is )and we are never quite sure what’s coming next.

There’s been lots of advice about watching out for and preparing for squalls and we’ve had plenty but we love them , it actually gives us a chance to get some miles under our belt when one of them passes  over, and yesterday I had a fantastic deck shower under the torrential rain . Totally predictably though the rain stopped just after I had finished lathering up . I even said to Jan “ wouldn’t it be funny if the rain stopped just after ………. “.

I had two clear images in my mind before we left , one was gritting our teeth as we surfed down massive waves with black clouds all around , and the other was an image from Dead Calm where Nicole Kidman is swimming naked in perfect azure blue sea under the scorching sun

 

 

 

 

 

 

sorry drifted off there for a minute ………… Anyway , sunwise it’s been pretty lacking . Most days are cloudy for 60% of the time and Jan won’t go swimming because I told her I saw a sharks fin about 1000miles ago.   I did , honestly.  Neverless,  Jan  does do a very passable imitation of Nicole Kidman and I think I’m in for a bit of roleplay later , chasing her around the deck for the engine keys .

 

Spaghetti Bolognaise tonight , mmmmmm.

 

We’ve had a couple of pizzas made in the frying pan and finished off in the oven, , should really use the grill but you couldn’t melt a Kraft cheese slice under ours. Excellent pizzas but I reckon we’re using more gas than a power station but who cares , tummy comes first.

 

For safety Weyve is still a dry boat except between  1.00 & 2.00  , I think it’s amazing we’ve lasted this long . I’m not sure why we think it’s safe to drink between 1.00 and 2.00 but we have managed to convince ourselves and anyway we don’t go out during this period

 

Hope you are all getting into the Christmas spirit