13:14S 163:06W

 

David tells me I am not allowed to write a negative blog so, even though it’s been blowing up to 30knots, we’ve had torrential rain, ghastly squalls and some rolly seas, I am going to stay light and bright.  Given that we made landfall at lunchtime today I can be very bright!!   Perhaps I should take a leaf from fellow cruisers Hugh and Brenda’s book who come up on our SSB net morning and night sounding unfailingly bright and chirpy regardless of conditions.  Hugh and Brenda are tough old Scots sailors (well...older than us) who are on their second circumnavigation on their homebuilt sloop Scotia.  Yesterday morning, after a night of torrential rain and unpredictable squalls, Brenda came on sounding chirpy as ever and said “sailing’s wonderful isn’t it” in her delightful Scottish lilt.  She also said they’d caught two fish – a wahoo and a mahimahi – when we hadn’t even put the lines out it had been so rough. 

 

Because it’s been so horrid up on deck we’ve spent night watch down below, setting the alarm for 10 mins at which time we brave the elements for a scan of the horizon.  Between times we either sit at the navigation station and work on the computer or lounge around in the saloon on the port side settee.  After one particularly violent roll two nights ago, I found myself in an ungainly position wedged firmly on the floor between the settee and the table.  I’d obviously nodded off and rolled off when Bandit heeled in a gust.  Problem was, we’d put lots of cushions and the squabs from upstairs on the settee to make it comfortable and most of these had also rolled off jamming me in to a very small space.  With Bandit continuing to lurch and roll in the squall I couldn’t get myself out!  It took some effort to extricate myself and I kept hoping David wouldn’t come through and find me in such an ungainly position – he would have laughed for days.

 

Last night I had another misadventure.  I’d been sound asleep when David woke me for my watch.  We’d had a busy night with several  sail changes (the story of this passage – sail in/sail out, pole up/pole down)  and I’d crashed into bed exhausted.  When woken I staggered out of bed, made a hot drink, dug out a Twix bar from the treats jar and went up on deck  to let the fresh air wake me up.  I put my tea down while I opened the Twix and it promptly spilt when a wave hit.  Not only did I lose the lot but it drenched me...and I had to spend the rest of night watch in wet leggings – I didn’t want to wake David to get dry ones.  At least the Twix survived. 

 

Making landfall was never so good and now we’re going to get some sleep.