Of rain, plenty of it, and signs of land. And bread.
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Wed 17 Aug 2011 12:28
|
48:18.45N
009:07.77W
Life at present resembles camping on the Yorkshire
moors in perennial rain. Except that, unlike camping, one has to go and stand
motionless outside in the rain for three hours, twice a day. The skies are
leaden grey to match the colour of the water and the clouds begin just beyond
the top of our mast. Every now and then they duck down into thick fog. There is
100% humidity so that, even if doesn't rain, everything is frosted with
droplets.
To make matters worse, the wind has dropped or
moved to an unsociable position on the nose and our autopilot broke. This meant
that Elise had the distinction of being the first hand-steering watch under
power last night, with the rain coursing down her into puddles at her feet. She
said she didn't mind in a very stoical fashion, but she looked sorry with the
drops running down her glasses into her jacket. First Mate Biffle, who is
reading this over my shoulder, informs me that her watch was 'at least a
bad'.
Anyway, mustn't grumble, I suppose. We knew that
queer, listless winds were heading our way and they did arrive, albeit later
than advertised. It had us unfurling and refurling the sails with tedious
regularity. We made a fairly dismal 50 miles of progress in the right direction
yesterday, thanks in large part to the expedient of sailing towards a point near
the French Spanish border - as close as the wind would allow to the Channel.
We've since dispensed with sails and are motoring, after the skipper fixed the
autopilot which was only suffering from a power supply problem that will be
familiar to William and Graham. More fun fixing it in the beating sun of
tropical latitudes than under a torrent of English-style rain.
We're now closer to the Scilly Isles than to any
other bit of land, which is a good sign we're moving in the right direction. And
in further promising auguries, we donked past the first majestic gannet we've
seen since leaving north Spain last year. It's possible that he's even a far
roaming beast from Alderney. We were also briefly followed by a flock of common
seagulls - another sure sign that we're close to land. We've seen plenty of
shearwaters and storm petrels mid-ocean, but the large, cruel beaked affairs
that steal chips at Weymouth don't seem to go more than a few hundred miles from
the coast. We were also visited by a lost looking finch in the half light of my
watch this morning and have just crossed swords with a Spanish fisherman who
seemed to think it no problem to have pointed his red trawler at our bow with
the intention of apparently steaming 10 yards ahead of us. I tried to raise him
in English, then French and finally Spanish on the VHF. He was undeterred by my
frosty 'there you are at last' when he finally responded on the radio and
informed us of his intentions. Fortunately, he wasn't towing any gear. In such a
vast ocean there seems no excuse for getting so close to other boats - we'll
have plenty of that shortly in the Channel, when we'll be pinballing between
tankers, freighters and ferries all the way up to Poole.
I've just put the dough in the oven, so we should
have a fresh loaf in about half an hour. It's my first attempt at home bakin',
so ironic that it should take place 200 miles offshore. Despite a lot of
enthusiastic talk from various ARC participants about the joys of fresh bread
every morning, it has taken us until now - three days before arriving home - to
experiment. I'd forgotten what a joy it is to finish up left over dough, but was
less delighted by the chunks of gelatinous proto-bread that are drying out on my
wet weather gear - I had to mix and knead it while there was a very brief puff
of wind which enabled me to leave the tiller this morning. The bread will be a
welcome respite from the endless tins of black-eyed peas, carrots and lentils,
which seem to be all that's left in the bilges. Our repertoire of such dishes is
not long...
|