Friday, 1st October 2010 (Day 5 at Sea)
We had another difficult night at sea, blooming mountainous sea's and a wind that would peel the hairs off a Monkeys tail. We seem to be making good progress, but it does not show on our daily log, even down to other yachts reporting bigger daily milage's than our selves and yet, when we check all the daily lattitude and longitude positions, we actually made ground on every boat in the fleet, from a mere 3 miles to over 60 miles, something is not adding up and we haven't figured it out yet.
09.00hrs Radio Net :- A Lady's turn today to, so skipper was the radio controller (on the SSB) for collecting all the positions of all the boats and logging them, plus checking that all boats are safe and sound. This usually takes about an hour in total.
At this stage, the clouds began to clear for a while, the first bit of blue we have seen for days, and it got nice and warm to boot. Then some wise guy decided to announce to the fleet that "Radio Mauritius" said that our area was going to have SE gales to strong gales for the next 3 days. Just what the sheppards dog ordered after he was kicked by the Sheppard.
The sea's were massive, and reminded Skipper of his cousin Dave H. who used to skipper huge big fishing trawlers in this area a few years ago. Dave tell's the story :-
"One day at sea in very bad weather, and having been awake for 30 hours on end, he began to nod off at the steering whell (as one would do) when suddenly, he was brought back to reality when his coffee slid down the ledge onto his shirt. Ohhhhh myyyy Gawd, what's happening here! Very quickly he realised that their ship was sliding bach down a wave that resembled a massive wall of water, heading straight to 'Davy Jones Locker'. It was either drive or drown, so he slammed the huge engines into full fwd and very slowly, as the engines roared above the the sound of the breaking seas, the ship slowly edged her way up to the top of the wave and down the other side, pheeeeew! that was a close call, and as a result he lived to tell the tale".
I love those hair raising stories, especially when they were passed onto skipper by Terry, so we make sure it reads well for all the land lovers.
Well we feel a bit like Dave H. right now, all on our own out here (well not quite) in the middle of this huge Indian Ocean, but it is Skippers responsibility to maks sure that the boat stays afloat and we arrive at our destination safely...
18.00hrs It is still extreemly rough, and it dinner time, so skipper cooked a steak curry, now this actually took 2 hours in difficult conditions and it all turned our lovely. An Indian Curry, with rice, and not one grain got spilt or left behind. As Neil and Terry don't do cooking, they have to do the dishes, bless them!
Distance travelled...................................744 n miles
Distance to Dest. ............................ 1,569 n miles.
Weather .....................................Crap
Sea's .......................................Massive
Wind ...............................................35/42 knots ( gusting to 50 nkots )
Ohhh, we actually managed a brief 14.1knots slidind down the front of a magnificant wave, wow !
Night watches, :- 22.00hrs / 00.00hrs............................... Terry
00.00hrs / 02.00hrs................................Aileen
02.00hrs / 04.00hrs................................Skipper
04.00hrs / 06.00hrs................................Neil
06.00hrs / 08.00hrs................................Terry
That's all for today,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( skipper )