30 September 2010
Last night was the worst night David and I have ever spent at sea. I think it was the same for the rest of the boats. Everyone seems to be having the same weather and the same winds but apart from a couple of bumped heads and getting very wet, thankfully everybody is ok. The seas were enormous with waves coming from different directions. In the blackness of the night, rogue ones creeping up on you would take you unawares and explode against the hull. From dead astern, the waves would roll underneath Voyageur's hull, then to rise, towering up in front of her bow where they would break in spumes of frothing, fizzing phosphorescence all around us. The rain was monsoonal in its quantity and strength. The wind rose to force seven gusting eight, howling around us, shaking the rigging and our nerves through and through. One breaking wave took us completely unawares, the water coming right into and filling the cockpit in a thunderous crash. We stood in disbelief at the ferocity of it, the water swilling around and over our feet. If the screen had not been fully closed up we would have shipped tons of water into the cabin. The force of it was such that had we been out with the security of our cockpit screen, one of us could have easily been washed overboard. Sleeping below was an impossibility, for me anyway. I was too fearful and afraid and needed David's reassuring presence in the cockpit. We took it in turns one hour each to stretch out on the cockpit seat while the other sat at the helm. It took all our concentration to keep Voyageur steering down the waves as she slewed this way and that. It is not the wind that will do you harm but the force of the waves from the effects of the wind. I prayed, I pleaded with Neptune, I tossed him one of David's precious Werther's. He only mocked me. I thought of dispensing a can of beer into the ocean but realised it could make matters worse. Goodness, if I had carried Valium tablets in my medicine chest I would have tossed him a couple! This was the last day of September. What a way to end the month. The gale lasted six hours. With the dawn came respite the wind easing to force six. We were so shell- shocked by it all that we took things very easy the following day, keeping the reefs in even long after the wind had dropped. Now at last we could sleep. We spent the whole day taking it in turns to lie down. But my dreams were nightmares. Will we ever see the sun again I wonder. Perhaps not for a couple of days anyway.....
Susan Mackay