Libeccio Blog: Tuesday, Dec 9th
Libeccio
Wed 10 Dec 2014 13:25
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Hi,
apologies for dropping the ball with the Blogs- I have been sending them daily
to the ARC blog site thinking that everyone was reading them there- wrong.
The missing ones were sent this morning and I am going to resend again now- the
difference is that the versions I am sending now have our position on them and
should show up on the google maps. Unfortunately they will all show as being on
the same day, so not sure how it will handle that.. likely a mess! We have done
a blog for every day we have been out so please let us know if we have missed
one. Location:
15 15.54N, 49 24.54W Today:
Congratulations!; What is haunting Mike?; Jane’s Green Thumb?; Back to school;
We wanted to start by congratulating Ali and Rhian on their engagement! We
wish them all the joy and happiness together that we have enjoyed so far—the
three couples represented on the boat have been married 29yrs, 29yrs and
30yrs... and lots more to go.
Day Two after the Turn Right and Libeccio is motoring, er, sailing along
having covered 157nm and 167nm in each of the two preceding 24 hour periods.
Izzy has managed to stay flying overnight despite a couple of occasions (see the
note below about Mike) when we had to revisit our fav game of dodge squall. We
are truly into trade wind sailing of constant and relatively consistent winds,
the seas rolling in the same direction of the boat (sort of), temperatures in
the mid to high 20’s C and humidity ranging from 70 – 85%. All this despite the
fact that we are surrounded by poor weather- a low to the North and East and a
trough to the West. Still plenty of time for us to get caught up into the bad
weather, but, being eternal optimists we are hoping to continue to bob and weave
our way to St Lucia, now just under 700nm away. The forecast is for rain in the
next 24 hours accompanied by slightly higher winds and then to settle down to
winds that Libeccio really likes. So strap in with us and lets go.
Hi,
apologies for dropping the ball with the Blogs- I have been sending them daily
to the ARC blog site thinking that everyone was reading them there- wrong.
The missing ones were sent this morning and I am going to resend again now- the
difference is that the versions I am sending now have our position on them and
should show up on the google maps. Unfortunately they will all show as being on
the same day, so not sure how it will handle that.. likely a mess! We have done
a blog for every day we have been out so please let us know if we have missed
one. Well Dear Reader, as you have read over the past two weeks, we have been
under a lot of strain—forced to endure seascapes that are spectacular, sunsets
and moon- rises that are breath taking, cloud formations that span as far as the
eye can see, and culinary delights that make sure that we all will be heading to
the gym as soon as we get back home. Unfortunately, some (actually one) of
us are starting to show small cracks in the veneer of normality, little hints
are being given that not all is well in the deep recesses of one’s imagination.
(You may want to grab a tissue now) Tragically, Mike has started to show signs
of hyper-SQUALL-itis, a rare condition that effects certain individuals who have
travelled a great many miles in the presence of squalls. The symptoms are
clear: imagining that every time you show up for your watch, a squall or
series of squalls pays you a visit, despite the watches before and after you
having had none; a blank gaze out to sea looking endlessly at clouds on the
horizon and pointing saying “that’s one”, “its coming to get me” followed by a
nervous laugh; and while off watch walking listlessly around the boat muttering
“I am haunted”. Treatment is uncertain (although he is requesting
immediate and repetitive applications of budweiser), the outcome in
question—please keep Mike in your thoughts. We are trying to get to St Lucia as
fast as we can to get access to this medicine- mostly for the rest of us.
For those of you that know Jane, she likes a bit of a challenge.
Provisioning for this trip was one of those challenges and specifically, she was
trying to ensure an endless supply of basel for her tomatoe sandwiches and
bacon/basel/tomatoe spaghetti sauce. Imagine our surprise when she shows up to
the boat following a provisioning trip in Las Palmas with a bag of compost
(dirt), a planter box and two sad looking basel plants. Mike offered to go the
parking lot to get the gravel necessary to line the bottom of the planter box to
allow the water to drain but not take all of the dirt with it. Jane then
replanted her basel plants into the planter box. All was going well, Jane
harvested the “leggy” bits for her meals and also an attempt to get them growing
better. Unfortunately, after this promising start and many signs of new growth,
when she checked on the plant one morning it looked at the plants and they had
been eaten by some unknown and unseen insect—tragedy. So, overboard the dirt,
rocks and plants went. In a cruel twist, it took more time and effort to clean
the dirt off of the sugar scoop (the back of the hull) than it did to make up
the planters in the first place. Undeterred, Jane is planning her return to
agriculture for our next trip.
We wanted to give a big Hello! to the Magdalen College School tutor group
tracking our progress and also to thank them for their questions:
Karim: Can you see anything? What's
it like not being able to see another boat? Hi Karim, during the
first two days we could see a few boats around us. As they are sail boats they
have tall masts, some over 20 meters high, and so we can see the sails for a
long time. After that, we didn’t see any other boats for many days at a time. We
can also use our radar to “see” other boats- we may not be able to see them with
our eyes, but, our radar scanner which is 15 meters above the boat can detect
boats up to 20 – 25 miles away, depending upon how big the boats are.
Tarek: How have you found seasickness? Tarek, this is the biggest question on sailor’s minds when they take a trip like this. All of us on Libeccio have had some experience travelling longer distances and so have our favourite ways to take care of seasickness. The first thing to say is that just about everybody I know, including the Captain, get some form of seasickness. It may be that they feel a little poorly and not actually ill, but, just about everybody needs time to get accustomed to non-stop movement of the boat. So, things we have seen used: wrist bands that create pressure on certain points on your arms; taking of ginger tablets (this is a favourite of ours); and taking of tablet specifically for seasickness like Sturgeron; Ahren: What type of marine life is there out there? Hi Ahren, we have been lucky to see quite a few whales this time- they are very likely Minke whales and they are very curious- it seemed that they like to swim right up to the boat and then turn away. They also seemed to be body surfing too—we could see them through the waves that were behind the boat and they would swim to very near the surface and then bend their body to ride down the wave. We have also seen a lot of flying fish- once they are out of the water they seem to ride the air very near the waves and we have seen some go 50 – 60 meters. Friends of ours on other boats have seen dolphins as well. Surprising to us was that we also saw two different types of birds- we couldn’t really understand how they could sleep at night being over 1000 miles from any land. Tom: How do you anticipate where the storms are going? Tom, every day we get a weather forecast from a company in the US that provides everyone on the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers with a 36 hour forecast. It gives details on storms, wind strength, wind direction and the size and direction of waves. We also use our satellite phone to send emails from our computer and we can get more forecasts emailed to us from other companies. We also keep a record on the boat of the temperature, the humidity and the air pressure (using a barometer)- they help us to figure out if it is likely that a storm will be coming near to us. Lastly, when storms or squalls (small rain storms with high winds) are within 12 miles of us we can use our radar to find them and track them . This way we can hopefully change our direction and get out of their way! Showing his more practical side, “Bill the
builder”, has developed the world’s first eco-sensitive drogue. As our readers
may know, when the weather becomes very stormy with the winds quite strong and
the waves high, it is important to be able to control the boat’s speed. This is
achieved by reducing the amount of sail, but, if that is not enough then often
boats will attach a small parachute like object to a long line and drag it
behind the boat. This is called a drogue. Bill has discovered that he can
achieve the same effect by fishing! For the past few days, every time Bill has
put his fishing lines out, they have become tangled in the seaweed- and so
creates the drag normally associated with a drogue. To be precise, he estimates
that 1.6633 times the square root of the weight of the seaweed will reduce
our speed by 0.1 kn. While we appreciate the enormity of this discovery, we now
realise that without his research we would shortly be arriving in St Lucia!
Speaking of arriving in St Lucia, we must remember to have Mike speak of SEAweed
and not just weed as he normally does- its an Aussie thing.A blog would not be complete without our
Culinary corner—tonight’s masterpiece is being prepared by our own domestic
goddess- Jane! She made us her homemade sauce including bacon, basel and fresh
tomatoes over bowtie pasta and accompanied by roasted vegetables
(courgettes/zuchini, peppers). To complete the meal she provided baked pear
halves topped with amaretti biscuits and demarara sugar and a dash of Amoraia, a
liquer from Greece.
Well, as usual, we are getting the boat ready
for the night part of the passage. The safety checks have been done, our night
equipment are on the table, the search light is at the helm. The sun has retired
about an hour ago and we are waiting for the moon to make an appearance.
Libeccio is surrounded by increasingly dark and ominous clouds and our biggest
challenge will be to differentiate between normal clouds and squalls. Mike is
really looking forward to this!
Take care, thanks for reading,
The crew of
Libeccio |