Common Sense - Mostly there
‘We joined the Navy to see the world,
And what did we see?
We saw the sea.’ (South Pacific)
That about sums it up: we’ve seen a lot of sea. In all its moods from calm to calamitous, from a dream of surfing dolphins and soaring shearwaters to a nightmare of inky peaks and canyons. It feels as though we’ve made very slow progress – well behind the ARC fleet, most of which have arrived in the Azores or will do so shortly. This is due, I guess, to a combination of inexperience, minor misfortunes and a boat untested in open ocean conditions. But hey! We’ve sailed over 1400 nautical miles on this passage (plus 900 to Bermuda before that, 400 through the Bahamas & 1200 down the US East Coast) and we’re ‘almost’ there! We’re all reasonably intact, aside from the usual sailor’s array of colourful bruises; Common Sense seems to be holding together (with the help of a lot of lines and bits of gaffer tape); we’re well fed and still on speaking terms, and as far as I can tell, no-one is barking mad just yet. We’ve managed some very scary episodes with teamwork and good humour. I think we’re doing OK.
Tuesday night: another horrible storm with winds gusting to 50 knots and big following swells. A pin holding the boom in place was shorn away with an awful crash and clatter. Paddy identified and fixed the problem in no time, despite the driving rain and screaming wind. What a legend!
380 miles to go. Beam me up Scotty.
PS Pad says the rum is running out and he requests an urgent airdrop.
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