Doldrums
NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Fri 21 Mar 2008 13:51
Doldrums
02:18N 37:15W
0900hrs 21st March
2008
I have been debating how to write this blog.
If I told the truth in detail it would make us sound pathetic and yet to cover
up and be 'stiff upper lippish' seems to be false. Here goes, read on
and make your own minds up at the end. Rest assured this is a very shortened
version of the happenings of the last twelve days.
We left Ascension and suffered four days of 7/8
knot tail winds. This is slow and very tiring sailing as the sails slat
and bang with the little wind there is in them plus the endless movement of the
sea. We then had no wind at all and just as we were facing up to the fact
that we should divert into the Brazilian Islands of Fernando de Noronha we
firstly got some wind and our friends who were two hundred miles ahead of us
reported that they had wind and that their visit to the aforementioned islands
was not a success due to swell in the only anchorage. They had been unable
to launch their dinghy to get ashore for fuel. We thus carried on.
First mistake. We then made another as the weather forecast suggested
there would be just as much wind to the NW of us as to the N. Thus I did
not carry out my gut feeling which was to motor due north to get across the belt
of calms and thunder, the Inter Tropical
Convergence Zone, as quickly as
possible. Second mistake.
To cut a long story short we found ourselves on the
19th motoring over a glassy dull leaden sea without so much as a zephyr on the
surface for hours on end. We had just 20 hours of diesel before we were
down to our basic minimum needed to get in anywhere, motor out of danger from
ships or thunder and charge the batteries. Morale was seriously low.
Then at 1800hrs on the 19th we saw in front of us a huge wall of black clouds
that stretched from horizon to horizon and up to at least 40,000 feet. As we
crossed the equator the wind went from zero to more than we had seen since
before St Helena, 25 plus knots. Down came the rain and to our horror out
to this murk a half mile to our starboard emerged two lights of a
freighter. His return on the radar had been blanked out by the huge heavy
rain drops. He did not answer the radio!
Since then it has been an endless series of
squalls, rain, one more similar ship and mercifully only a couple of hours of
calm. We have now been sailing Nordlys with more effort than I
usually put into a Solent race for twelve days and nights, somewhat
exhausting. One thing in our favour is that the moon was full last night
so we have had almost daylight conditions at night. This has been useful
as more than once the genoa has been exchanged for the big code 0 reacher in the
middle of the night to coax all possible miles out of the old girl.
So I am writing this with exactly half the journey
done in 12 days despite using 120 hours of engine time. Before us is
another 1500 miles and the forecast suggests plenty of wind, in fact over 20
knots in three days time from on or forward of the beam! Napoleon said 'in
defeat one needs champagne, in victory one deserves it'. Well we were
nearly defeated mentally on the 19th but not quite and although we had intended
to crack a bottle as Nordlys entered the northern hemisphere for the first time
since 2003 the arrival of the thunder squall made it impossible. We
certainly will crack at least one when we are at anchor in Tobago, where
incidentally we will cross our outbound track so technically the
circumnavigation will be completed.
We have eaten our last fresh fruit, we now have no
more vegetables and so far the fish are not biting. We have been amazed at
how little fresh stuff was available in St Helena and how the only people who
are organised in Ascension are a few locals who grow their own and the Americans
who fly stuff in. The Brits all go and eat in the American Base
restaurant! However, as I write this Annette is making bread and
there are lots of interesting tins which is OK for me, she
craves fresh salads and fruit more than I do but then she never
suffered an English boarding school in the 50s and 60s.
One thing this trip has taught me is that I now
have huge respect for an American we made friends with in the Pacific who sailed
a 30 foot gaff cutter which was totally engineless, i.e. no outboard even,
around the world. I could cope with using a sextant and having no GPS, I
could just cope with the size of his boat and I would be happy to sail in and
out of anchorages but I now know that the idea of being at sea in a flat endless
calm with no potential way out is not a situation I or Annette finds easy to
deal with mentally.
Happy times dear readers.
'Wind wind oh where art thou.'
FAMIN
'wind glorious wind'
POTENTIAL FEAST!