10 April
Sweetest Thing
Anthony Richards
Sun 10 Apr 2011 12:01
|
Superlative Saturday
Morning...
"when you walk through a storm hold your head
up high and dont be afraid of the dark...."
This morning as daybreak cracked through the black
abyss i wished it hadnt... ignorance truely is bliss... Sitting in the saloon
feeling the rollercoaster ride the waves carrying you up and down, the wind
howling along creating huge amounts of spray to be washed into the cockpit,
occasional flashes of violet and green as lightning fills the sky, this is all
surreal, and scary yes but the blackness deprives the senses and you can
convince yourself in fact its just a bit bumpy!
but the swell and waves i saw once morning came
were like nothing ever before, the clouds bit by bit began to brighten giving
false hope that the storm has past when infact its just simply the sun somewhere
far behind the masses of grey waking up and showing us what truely
lies in the wind and ocean around...Wave after wave scooping us up and throwing
us down, great mountains of water building behind the boat towering above
like a giant ready to pounce then disappearing under us just as the
crest begins to break dragging us along increasing our speed down the face of
the wave, we run down and down until it is exhausted and lets us be released
only to be at the mercy of the next...
at one point i was sitting on the helms seat, a
good 2 metres above the water line, and i turn around to see a wave towering
easily 2 metres above me then another breaks on top of it and i see white water
pumelling down towards me... I thought 'oh my god im going to die...' luckily
the boat had other plans and took it very graciously only being pulled
up wind at the last minute to allow a wave to crash down onto her
beam...filling the cockpit with a flood of salt water and drenching me from head
to toe... after that i went back inside.. phew... it was tense... the whole
morning was tense, winds and waves this big are quite intimidating...
It still is, winds reached a scorching 44knots
apparent, 50 knots true, force 10 i think its safe to say we
are definitely in a storm...
still at least we are heading in the right
direction now... this morning when Anthony came up he asked what our heading
was, I told him he didnt want to know... he said he did, i said he wouldnt like
it....he said he'd still like to know...north east...i said... Now we're
going West...
(Big shout out to Mrs Jo West....)
The tops of the waves are a beautiful aquamarine
colour where the daylight shines through the breakers... very
pretty.
its just after lunch now, I made pizza's on
baguettes, but only managed to eat a quarter of mine!! the sea is rough!! but
blue sky is just trying to poke its way through the clouds hopefully bringing
with it some smoother seas and calmer winds, but i fear they wont happen until
later this evening!!
I still would rather be sailing across the
atlantic than flying above it i have to say though!!!
Well its saturday today... only two more
days...ish...
x
After lunch
Well,the clouds to the northeast I mentioned
yesterday did bring the easterlies ..... and howl! But I was rather pleased with
myself, at the same time as getting ready for the winds (reducing sail to the
smallest scrap of headsail) and keeping the boat sorted, I managed to make a
napolitana sauce for supper as well as for Alexa's delicious pizza bread. How is
that for multi-tasking? My main worry was that the pot would jump off the
stove and onto the floor! Only the lid fell off.
Half a tank of fuel, enough water for a shower
every day, good boat speed in the right direction ...... life is
good.
Sublime Sunday
The wind and swell have now died and we are
motoring. The only excitement in the dark early hours of this morning was
when I saw a ship's lights coming up from behind on a collision course.
Fortunately he saw us and changed course (we had right of way and he was the
give way vessel) so I called him up on the VHF and said "Thank you, sir" to
which he replied "You are welcome". What a gentleman!
Today I make our last loaf of fresh
bread.
We are now in the Gulf Stream and should enter
Chesapeake Bay around lunchtime (local time) tomorrow so we will stop for fuel
and a take away. Mine is going to be a bacon cheeseburger!
Position at 1200 UTC 10 April
35 48.720n
072 32.019w
24 hour run 131 nm
Wind SE F2
|