Ziggin' and Zaggin' and Rockin' and Rollin'

Ziggin' and Zaggin' and Rockin' and Rollin'

Wednesday, November 9.

Happy Birthday, Gail!

I did the whole night watch last night, but was hoping that I could totally relax along the way. No such luck. I was up all night with light and variable winds. Sooooo frustrating! No matter what I tried, the jib would herk and jerk, and the main would clang back and forth. Carey got up a couple times because of the noise, and I took advantage of those times to gybe or furl or unfurl. I didn't get a rest all night, because as soon as I would try to settle down, something else would start to bang around. Grrrrrr.

Carey got up around 6:00. We turned on the engine, because the winds had completely died down. I'm nervous because I want to have some fuel left for each day to charge the batteries. However, the other option is to just sit here because there is absolutely no wind (less than 5 knots).

Carey had raisin loaf for breakfast, while I took a nap. I was up in an hour, but felt refreshed. Carey cleaned up the messes in the boat, while I did the log book, picked up the weather forecast, and plotted our course. We discussed strategy for using the forecasted winds to our benefit in the next couple days. We'll head southeast, south, or east, whatever the wind gives us.

Around 10:30, I made macaroni and cheese (with leftovers for tomorrow) and we had an early lunch. Later, I cleaned the dishes and went down for another one hour nap. When I came up into the cockpit, Carey tried to take a nap. (See what the focus of our days is?)

At about 12:30, dolphins came to play. Fairly small black ones. So pretty. Love to see something other than the blue out here!

The forecast is for us to get some of the winds from one of the gales going through the Atlantic. We're in for some high winds and higher gusts, with big swells again. So, today I made up some food in preparation. I made chilled oatmeal, cut up veggies and cheese, made extra mac and cheese, and extra rice. Plus, I'll cook extra pork tenderloin for dinner. Hopefully that will hold us over until I can cook again.

We finally had a real dinner--pork tenderloin, rice, and salad. Delicious! No leftover pork. It was so tasty we ate it all

Tonight we are doing 6 hour watches. Carey did the first 6, from 6 to 12, and I'm doing the second one from 12 to 6 am. It's a long shift, but it gives each of us a better chance to get a good sleep. We'll see how it goes.

The water is so calm tonight. First time we've seen this since leaving Portsmouth. I better enjoy it while I can because the forecast is for a gale to go through in a nearby area, which may bring high winds and big seas in our location.

Gail sent a screenshot of the YB Tracker. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how big the file was until I had already accepted it Now, it's clogging up our incoming mail pipe and nothing else can come in. That means no weather forecast. Not good when we're out here. My job tonight is to get this file in. It will take all night, but it seems to compress files a bit each time I hit the send/receive button. That doesn't seem to be working with this one. Aaaarrrrggghhhh!


Thursday, November 10

By midnight tonight, when I started my night watch, we were just starting to get a bit of wind, at 10-15 knots.

When I'm on night watch I'm more attuned to my senses. That's when I really notice the smell of the sea. It smells like the dorado fish we caught on John Kretschmer's boat in the Caribbean last January. Or most likely, the fish smells like the sea. It's not a fishy smell. It's something different, a smell all its own.

It's overcast tonight so I can't check out the constellations or count the stars.

We're definitely moving south. It's getting warmer. Tonight I don't even need a jacket!

At 3:30 I woke up Carey to help me reef the sails. The wind had freshened suddenly to 20 knots. We furled the jib right in and put three reefs in the main. Later, we put a little bit of jib out to balance the boat.

It's 5:30 am and I'm still trying to unclog our email. No luck. Just more emails adding to the clog.

By 6:00 I was seeing 25 knot gusts on the gauge and the swells were building rapidly.

When you look toward the horizon at sunrise, it looks like some waves are trying to leap out of the ocean. Like a whale, they rise well above the surface then sink gracefully back into the sea.



At 10:00, we hit our first ocean squall. Wow, pretty gnarly! The wind gauge showed 42 knots at one time. We reduced sail as much as possible--just a handkerchief on the jib. Carey knocked the autopilot off and hand steered so that we could run with the waves, instead of having them in our beam. That kept the boat much more stable. It lasted about 20 minutes and then it quieted down a bit. The swells never calmed much, though. We are constantly rolling.

Most of this trip has been downwind sailing. Unfortunately, our boat is Speedy Gonzalez fast upwind sailing but it's not set up for downwind. Most of the other boats have spinnakers or big genoas that help them sail downwind. We don't, so we have to tack back and forth when we don't have the right wind. That makes us way slower than most other boats in the rally. We're sailing more miles! My recommendation for anyone thinking about doing this trip is to invest in a good downwind sail. Preferably one you can set from the cockpit. You wouldn't want to be on deck in these nasty seas. (More on this later.)

I fixed the email issue today, so we can receive emails again. Phew! I'm glad that is resolved.

Today, we are celebrating having travelled over 2000 nautical miles since leaving home. We are also more than halfway to the BVIs. Yippee! We have travelled 750 nautical miles since leaving Portsmouth on Saturday, and have less than 700 left. That's if we can sail in a straight line. Haha. We can travel a long way when we keep going all night.

Even though we were rocking madly, I made supper on our gimballed stove, just like an old salty. And, I have pictures to prove it! More on that later.


Friday, November 11

Last night, I did the watch from 8:00 to about 2:30. At first, Carey tried to sleep in the cockpit, but he was up several times--every time the sail flapped or a particularly big roller just about tipped him onto the floor. Eventually, he went below and got some sleep there. We switched around 2:30 and I got to sleep until after 7 am. We haven't had a coffee or an alcoholic drink since a couple days before we left Portsmouth. Not sure which I'll have first. Oh, yes I do--a rum runner would be fabulous to celebrate our arrival in the BVIs. (The Book Club Ladies know what I'm talking about!)

Lots of zigging and zagging for us. We are moving along, but not nearly as fast as we could be if we had a good downwind sail. A downwind sail would allow us to go on a straighter line right to our destination. Instead, we have to zig and zag, because almost every day we've had winds right on our stern. Any other point of sail we'd be fine, but not downwind. Carey's kicking himself, but really, we didn't have the time or the money to invest in a new sail and learn how to use it. Especially when this ocean passage might be a one time thing. Who knows? Unfortunately, I have to remind Carey of this several times a day. He hates being one of the slowest in the rally. He's never had that issue in his life. Oh, well, we'll get there eventually.

We turned on the engine at 10:40 to charge the batteries. They were at 46% and they're not supposed to go below 50%! Not good. It's sunny today, so I'm hoping the solar panels will kick in soon to do their job.

You would think this would be boring--day in, day out, doing nothing but sitting in a boat on an ocean--but it's not in the least. We are constantly navigating, discussing strategy, adjusting the sails and basically trying to survive. Everything takes more time and energy than when you're on firm, stable land. Getting a meal put together is no mean feat when the ship is a'rollin' and a'rockin'! I've got a photo of me cooking up supper using my gimballed stove. You can see that I am firmly holding on with one hand, while stirring the pot which is on the swinging stove. My feet are braced wide apart and I like to have a hip braced against a wall or counter if possible. Using the bathroom is the same kind of gymnastics. You can imagine. The worse thing is that my legs feel shakey and wobbly all the time (like when you're ill, and I don't like that). Luckily, I'm perfectly healthy with sturdy legs--it's the boat that's shakey and wobbly! I'm pretty sure we'll be walking l
ike the sailor version of John Wayne when we hit the shore. LOL.

(I can't send pics very well via satellite so I'll do a blog with just pics when we get to land.)