19 September 2010
It came as a bolt from the blue. I am sitting in the cockpit contentedly reading my latest novel, it is pitch dark and suddenly a flying fish, flapping furiously, lands in my lap! Recovering my composure I dive below, grab the dustpan and scoop up the flailing fish, tossing it back overboard from whence it came. I got the fright of my life! We had been sailing non-stop for nearly 24 hours in steady east to north east winds of force four to five. Running dead downwind under poled out genoa, keeping a parallel course to our rhumb line, and with just 300nm to go, we felt that at last we were making good progress towards the Cocos Islands.
Throughout the day the ocean swell had been gradually building and Voyageur surfed majestically down the waves, her bow dipping and rising as one giant roller after another rushed swept under her keel. Grey overcast skies had replaced the hot sunny days of the earlier part of the trip however, and towards evening dark squall clouds were forming on the horizon astern of us. Chatting with Tzigane who were within VHF range, John told David that they had had rain the entire day. Being further south we had been fortunate enough to stay dry. What a difference just a few miles can make.
At 4am, towards the end of my watch the first squall passed ahead and to port. Lightning appeared but was now ahead of us. I breathed a sigh of relief that we had missed it. I had just gone below to put the kettle on for David's watch, when I heard a resounding clap of thunder overhead. I immediately got David up. Knowing the damage lightning can cause, as was our experience of a near lightning strike in Turkey, two years ago, we shut down the computer and radar, taking a risk by leaving the instruments on, and hoping and praying for the best. It was all around us now, we were right in the thick of it, lightning illuminating our poor little boat and the surrounding seas as if a great floodlight had been trained upon us. I was scared out of my wits. I had failed to see it coming on the radar which we leave on standby mode, despite checking it at regular 10 minute intervals.
The winds went from 5 to 25 knots in seconds. And then the rains came, sheets of it. We closed up the companionway hatch to a slit but with the wind dead astern it still managed to find its way in. David sat huddled at the helm position in his foul weather jacket. Down below I kept an eye on the See Me Radar as the visibility was virtually nil. Suddenly we had a solid contact. Something was out there all right but where and how far away? Now we had no choice but to switch on the radar but there was so much sea and rain clutter that we could not identify our contact. David called the WARC yachts on the VHF radio, but the only response came from Tzigane, 13nm behind and well to the north of us.
We knew were much closer to something else and sure enough as we strained our eyes, we saw the bright lights of something off our starboard bow, certainly bigger than yacht, perhaps even a ship, but through the blackness of the night and the driving rain we could not identify the lights nor establish in which direction it was travelling. It turned out to be a fishing boat, heading east, surprising as we were now 880nm from Indonesia. Two hours after it all started I went below, peeled off my sopping wet clothes and climbed gratefully into my bunk. I could still see the flashes of lightning through the cabin curtains but thankfully the thunder was now just a faint boom in the distance. The storm had finally passed ahead of us and luckily this time we had escaped without incident.
Susan Mackay