Scolamanzi - Day 3 and 4 - wind or no wind - I still love it!
Day 3 and 4?.wind or no wind ?I still love it!
Waking up for my 6am shift with the most amazing red sunrise over a mirror of water on the one side and the full moon playing with its reflexion on the blue purple waters with the most beautiful undertones of pink and grey blue! It is beautiful!... but those are the moments that pictures just do not do justice to! Your first reaction always is to grab your camera ? just to be looking at the most insipid, not even remotely true version of what you?re experiencing!... It can also only be that beautiful with no wind though! ? but I don?t mind ? I am sure there will be days to come on the crossing that will make me wish for only one more day like this!
After the 12am excitement (a slight change in direction of the wind and a mild increase of wind speed? getting the genoa up and smiling upon the increase of 0.5 knots (amazing with how little we can be happy with! Lol) we were hoping to make good grounds even today? the excitement was short lived I?m afraid? we might have to wait for tonight ? it looks like conditions will pretty much be boring till then!
Mid Afternoon?Veering away from the rum line to catch the surprisingly NNW wind of about 9 knots , gave us an opportunity to sail for quite some time in silence! How good is it not to hear the roar behind us! Doing up to 8.5 knots was great! The peace and serenity of nature?s elements and it?s beauty suddenly were magnified and almost made me realise what I am doing here! So does every day bring you that flash of awe that make you realise that there is undeniably a Master Artist/Creator out there - sculpturing these wonderful creations of beauty around us in the most amazing colours ? hopefully guiding and protecting each of the 35 yachts on this shared journey!
430 nm to go: At the beginning of my shift early on day 4 (Tuesday 8th May ? I so easily get lost in time and have to ask around what day it is today!!... I only mention it to keep some record for myself!) ?in the warmth of the early morning sun (in contrast with a chilly night just passed) I can see the Captain putting out the big guns with bigger lours than the days before! One has to believe that this massive purple blue sea (water an absolutely clear indigo blue ) must have a few stupid fish in that will mistake a lour for the real McCoy!... We were fishless for 2 days now and lost 2 lours to something massive ? a big tuck ?and then gone? ! I?m looking forward to some alternative protein source of protein other than the legged once!
PS As I was getting ready to copy this on an email to send into my blog, I was so rudely interrupted by the zing of the real and had to help the Captain bringing in a nice 10kg tuna! It took us 20 min flat to get into the pan; some left in the curry sauce and the rest for freezing and sashimi ? you see? there really are some stupid big fish around! HaHa!
And due to that delay in my attempt to get this message out ... just enough time has now gone by to bring us to the perfect spot where the 9-10 knots of Westerlies are taking us to the Code Zero option! I have to silently swallow my very unpreserved opinion about the Code Zero in my previous blogs ... it was working fantastic!! We did a constant 8 nots for few hours until the wind picked up just enough to make us nervous and had to furl the humongous sail... the furling was a breeze ...thanks to Quantum sail?s great advice on how to do it the easy way! ... The fun is not yet over as the Genoa and Mainsail is cracking the water for us!
Good job wind.... Go Scolamanzi!!
Henriette
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