It's Been a Hard Days Night 40:30.8N 17:46.1W
Ellatrout3
Thu 26 May 2016 13:45
|
It's been a hard days night and I bin working like
a dog; It certainly feels like it, since Monday evening until shortly before 10
this morning the wind has been blowing 20 to 25 knots against us. We have
had three reefs in the main and half jib rolled up all that time. The sea was
very confused, very bouncy bouncy as the children would say, making life
difficult on board. I'm very glad I didn't get into the serious end of the
storm, Those guys must have had a tough time. I hope they are all ok. I did look
at going sraight through as 35 knots is not the worst I have experienced but
discussions with my shore based team and the concern expressed by other
experienced Jesters persuaded me to godown the Iberian penisular and try to
get round the south of it as it was forecast to stall over the Azores. Genrally
this plan has worked, the price being a hard beat west against the wind all
the way from Spain to the Azores, some 700 miles. We still have 430 to do and we
are still beating into the wind although conditions are far more benign having
passed through the eye this morning. Things may get lively again if the
northerlies on the western side of the low pass over me. ET has done me
proud!
Sarah described the incident when the kettle, hob,
fiddles and burner tops all flew into the air, the force of the impact
overcoming the retaining clips. Since then I have discovered all sorts of stores
and equipment out of place where the they had landed.
On a lighter note after the eye went through, blue
sky with cloud all round, it poured with rain, just to empasise its
passing, and then the sun came out on a very peasant scene. There must have
been a shoal of fish about because ther were dolphins all around diving
and chasing about the surface , paying no attention to me, and
shearwaters sat on the surface making sudden dashes presumably for food. The
amusung thing was the dolphins zooming through the shearwaters who lifted off
the surface in some alarm to let them through and then settling back again,
obviously saying to one another " these dolhins are worse than the
children!"
Poppa/Dad/Roger
|