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Milanto - Log Day 5 - The Rain



Day 5. The rain.

Well yes, things were slightly different. I don't think that any of us really anticipated that we would encounter rain on this trip. Stupid I suppose, but Canary Islands to St Lucia, where's the rain in that?

Well if yesterday is a typical example, a lot as it happens.One or two of us hadn't actually even brought anything waterproof, and there was I thinking that I was ill prepared having just my cycling trousers (although my brand new waterproof shell jacket with hood attracted envious looks).

Rain arrived around, well to be honest I cant really remember when exactly, but it was somewhere between starting our first shift at 11.00 and ending it at 15.00, still light in other words. But it was the night shifts where it was hardest really. The deck of Milanto doesn't really afford much shelter from anything really, least of all fierce squalls. Valerio set his boat out to sail, no frippery.

You can see these squalls coming from about 30 mins away, even at night, heavy dark patches sometimes trailing a long finger or two down to the sea. Sometimes fast moving, other times seemingly static, set against the dark of the night, the leaden sea and a weary head, they are the very essence of an ominous presence.

And with them comes gusts of wind, which cause excitement on board, preparation for or actualadjustment of the sails, or even full blown changes. Putting up the spinnaker pole is like man handling a greased up Polaris missile, and that is some feat on a slippery deck shifting every few seconds with the sea.

I have to admit to feeling slightly sorry for myself during the graveyard shift of 04.00 to 07.00, on Wednesday morning, another one of the squalls we now call s**t storms doing its best to cause upset, the sea at some points towering over the back of the boat like a massive demonic whale about to beach itself on deck.

Then an expected voice snaps meback and makes me realise how fortunate we all are to be able to do this. Josh, our quiet, polite, if sometimes slightly menacing Watchmember, at the wheel, teeth gritted as the deck bounces, shouts out "Hey Valerio, what sort of god damn goat rodeo have you brought us to?!". At least that's what I think he said. Now I'm not sure exactly what a goat rodeo is, or even if it exists in anything other than expression form, but I'd like to know. And on this trip I now know what it feels like to sail in a grim old seadog night, I know what a small electrical storm encapsulated in a strange purple cloud looks like, and I know what it feels like to have a night time visitation from a family of small dolphins, who came out of nowhere, checked us out for 5 minutes, darting in and out of the water, and then left.

So once the boat is all set straight, you cannot beat it. Once the wind is blowing nicely and the rain has stopped, once you have even partially mastered surfing down a 4m wave, at the helm it is truly magical. Weare on board a veritable flying machine, now 500 miles from the nearest dry land, skimming across salt water 3 km deep and it is totally and utterly amazing.


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