21:06.557N 039:25.030WW
Whisper
Noel Dilly
Sun 18 Nov 2012 16:55
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"One Sail On Our Wagon and We're Still Rolling
Along - 18th November"
Last night the wind strengthened and we found
ourselves hurtling along with three reefs in the main and a reefed headsail,
even so we were surfing down the waves at 12 knots. We have now taken the
main down and with the wind still behind us we are making 7 knots under a reefed
headsail alone in a roly poly fashion. Last night was a difficult watch,
first of all Windy Bill broke one of his traces, which was soon fixed. He
works well, but with a following wind and heavy swell he needs a gentle hand to
assist in keeping him on track and the wind in both sails. My watch was
8pm to 11pm with no moon or stars to light the way and was a
little scary. An electrical storm was exceedingly active to the south
of us and kept illuminating the horizon, the sea swell which could not be seen
in the dark, kept roaring past occasionally depositing part of its crest in the
cockpit. All I could see were the white caps alongside Whisper before they
disappeared underneath her hull or raced off alongside her. It is really
quite a beautiful sight, but the noise and uncertainty of whether it will push
the boat off course and back the main or jib is quite worrying. I was
pleased when I was relieved of the responsibility at 11pm.
This is day 10 and we are now half way to
the Caribbean with only approximately 1000 miles to go, so we probably have
at least 9 more days at sea. It is certainly a very very long way.
We are all well and have plenty of provisions and water, so apart from many
bumps and bruises and the continual struggle of trying to keep ones own balance
and the contents of cupboards or food under preparation under control, every
thing is fine.
Yesterday we saw a Tropic Bird and today two
more. They are a very beautiful and quite rare sea bird. They
are white and look a little like a large Tern with extremely long tail
feathers similar to a Swift. They live on fish, but I am
not sure if they dive for them but as the belong to the Gannet family it is
possible that they do.
We also had another stowaway yesterday, in the form
of a flying fish. It flew out of the sea and into the cockpit crashing
into the other side of the cockpit. I was called to get my camera but when
I arrived with it and saw the poor fish just lying there I picked it up, at
which point it gave a huge wriggle and I dropped it back into the ocean, hopeful
that it would survive. One live fish, no photo and a very fishy
hand!
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