![]() Land Ho! Well we did it, we crossed the Atlantic. Well we crossed part of it anyway. Everyone is still in good spirits and we didn’t have any major upsets so we are calling the trip a success. Although we barely have any sail slides left (the tags that keep the sail in the mast) as they mostly broke when we reefed the sail (tied it down in sections to make it smaller when it is very windy). The main still worked surprisingly well but we will have to look at having them replaced once we get to an Island that has a sailmaker – Probably Horta. We are in the marina in Lajes on Flores, the most westerly Island. We sailed in last night around 9:30 pm Azores time but no one was around. We tied up to an empty dock, had a celebratory drink and something to eat, and headed to bed for the night. It was great to sleep for the whole night again! And it was nice not to be moving – everything seems so silent. As Daniel remarked, it’s strange not to feel like you are lying in the bathtub with your head under water for a change. This morning when we woke up we looked around for someone, anyone who could help us sort out how we check in and after some asking around we found the Marina master. He says that he can arrange for us to check in on Monday so for right now we are wandering around the island illegally, technically, but they don’t seem to think much of it. We plan to rent a car tomorrow to explore the island and check out some of the beautiful waterfalls and lakes before Daniel heads out on Monday back to Toronto. Oh and the boat is an absolute mess so at some point someone will have to do some serious cleaning. For those of you who have expressed concern about the bad weather that is coming our way or if you hear about bad weather on the news, don’t worry it’s not actually coming our way. There is a hurricane warning for the eastern and middle Islands but we are out of its path as we are on the west section of islands. The bad weather is supposed to hit Sunday night or Monday and we will wait it out safe and sound on beautiful Flores. ![]() Waves coming from every direction. Well we have spent the last three days blasting east on winds from the west. We are sailing under a single sail – the head sail and we’ve wrapped it up on the furler because the wind is so strong and it’s really quite small. The wind has been blowing from 16 to 36 knots and despite our lack of sail we are doing 7 knots; 8 and 9 if a really big wave pushes us forward. It’s a blustery time to be sure and we can’t help but feel that it will go on forever. We are glad to be moving and to be making such progress but I cannot express how large the waves are, well I suppose that I can they were2 to 3 metres , but it’s daunting when you are viewing them from the boat! They also seem to be coming from different directions and we can see smaller waves on top of the big waves. We are ready for a slight change in wind direction just to shake things up a bit! It’s difficult to cook because there is a fair bit of rocking and rolling but the pressure cooker is making us lots of tasty soups and stews – Adam is terribly sad to be eating so many vegetables and will be even sadder when I start rationing his cheese portions. ![]() Everyone returned with all of their toes. Well the sailing gods have seen fit to smile on us today – finally. We had a great day, the sun was shining the weather was warm and I even did some laundry in the sink. Daniel and Adam took advantage of the nice weather and had the first swim of the trip. Daniel was ready to dive in but Adam required some encouragement, he always gets testy when he has to take a bath. I maintained a vigilant shark watch but the guys didn’t stay in very long and no one swam very far from the boat so there were no incidents. The water looked incredibly blue today and they reported that it was quite warm – not warm enough to tempt me to go in, but they said that it was nice. Not long after we spotted a pod of dolphins. I was on the bow of the boat when Adam started yelling furiously and jumping around in the cockpit. I was trying to tie a line to prevent the boom from knocking around and I assumed that I fouled one of the sheets for the headsail but I couldn’t make out the problem. Eventually he screamed dolphins loud enough and I spotted about half a dozen of them surfing the bow wave right at my feet. They were really amazing, we could clearly see them as they made sharp twists and turns and surged through the water. I've been listening to a Sherlock Holmes audio book to make the time go by on my shifts and I believe that Adam has been watching episodes of Night Court that he downloaded to his phone. My knitting scarf is coming along but Adam insists that I should start knitting something useful – like pot mufflers to dull the noise when the boat rocks – his sass has earned him a poorly knitted and salty scarf for Christmas. ![]() Adam catching a nap between squalls. We abandoned all thoughts of keeping records over the last three days save a note on our location scrawled in the log book. We’ve got a serious case of the -can’t make any progress because we spend so much time heaving to in order to make it through the squalls that perpetually come and go and then when the wind dies there is too much of a swell to do anything but rock around, get everything soaking wet, and go insane – blues. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the gale on the way to the Magadalen Islands; there were no scary parts and no one was seasick but we were pretty miserable for the whole time. I spent at least two of my overnight shifts curled up at the entrance to the boat, soaking wet and kidding myself that if I just scrunched up small enough the dodger would keep the rain off - the rain which was coming in from all angles it seemed. I did this while we spent hours heaving to (purposely stalling out the boat and just drifting when the wind and weather is bad). The rain seemed to stop when I wasn’t on shift and Daniel was starting to predict when a squall would hit based on when I was on deck. The depressing part is that you can’t make progress while drifting so we lost at least a day– but we are back on track and drying out and today we saw a sperm whale, about 30 feet away from the boat, resting on the surface of the water. Interesting fact from Daniel, whales are hemispheric sleepers which means that they sleep one side of their brain at a time. So while right side of the brain is taking a cat nap, the left side is functioning and keeping the whale floating and breathing and then it switches sides when the right side of the brain is charged up. This blog is certainly entertaining and educational . . . ![]() Is that a gorilla on the bow? We still haven’t seen any whales on the crossing but Adam saw something that looked not like a whale and not like a dolphin and I am going to call it a possible shark spotting – so awesome, our first possible shark sighting. We have also been followed by a small collection of sea birds which are quite pretty but it’s a bit strange the way that they seem to circle the boat and try to stay as close to it as possible. Adam thinks that they are playing in the air currents around the boat; Daniel thinks that they have learned to stay near fishing boats to get food and are confusing the mighty Zenobia with a fishing boat; and I am starting to wonder if they might be a type of sea vulture circling us because they know something that we don’t . . . We have also discovered that there are flying fish in the north Atlantic. For anyone who doesn’t know these fish, which do have a proper name that I don’t know, jump out of the water and flap their fins and appear to glide over the water before they drop back in. Some of them stay out for quite a way and look just like birds flying along the water. The flying fish have been attracting giant fish that leap out of the water after them and then smash back down with a huge splash. We are pretty much living the nature channel, except that we haven’t taken any pictures or footage of any of this despite the fact that we are now camera people. Adam and Daniel are getting lots of star gazing in at night via their star gazing apps on their phones. They huddle together in the cockpit looking at their phones which are pointed at the stars and call out the names as they come up on the screen. The nights have been really peaceful and it is amazing how many stars you can see when you have complete darkness around you and nothing but sky in all directions. ![]() Sunset on the high seas. We have had great sailing for the last few days. The sun is out and drying everything out and the crew is feeling much better and operating at about 90%. Our watches have been going well although I still can’t manage to nap during the day – Adam says the inability to nap, anytime, is a character flaw. Adam and Daniel have been playing with the radar settings and, I think, are having fun trying to determine whether the blobs on the screen are freighters or fishing boats. So far fishing boats seem to win out. We had a particularly eventful day today. We have been seeing massive collections of seagrass which seem to form small islands all around us. This may not seem like much – to anyone – but it’s a change from the constant blue. It has also spurred on talk of sea grass salads and soups and Adam is convinced that if the zombie apocalypse happens while we are at sea that we could certainly harvest it for food. We also recently saw a floating barrel today - pretty exciting stuff, and have dolphins playing in the bow wave during most of the late night and early morning shifts. We have officially turned south east and are making our way towards 40 degrees. The weather continues to be beautiful and the air has warmed up considerably. ![]() Still a little green but sitting up! It’s the fourth day and things are getting Back to normal. We left Sydney on August 3rd and headed back out to the Cabot Straight. We saw a large colony of seals fishing and sunning themselves in the water at the mouth of the Sydney Harbour – which was the best part of the day. In fact that is the last thing that I remember about our departure day. Things deteriorated quickly and we had a rough night which lead into a rough couple of days. The wind wasn’t horrible but the waves were fast and steep. Zenobia was rocked around and the conditions were really uncomfortable. Daniel and I were seasick for the first night and I continued to have trouble well into the second day. Adam felt queasy but was able to continue on with his shifts and generally remained his sassy self. We have been through a full two days of our 2 hours on four hours off rotations but our bodies haven’t adjusted to the routine yet. Adam is doing well, aside from being tired, but Daniel and I have both felt extreme lethargy and can’t seem to do much beyond getting through our shifts. I’m having a difficult time sleeping during my four hours off and feel exceedingly tired at all times – my limbs don’t seem to want to do anything that I tell them! Untill today the weather has been grey and damp and the foul weather gear has been used daily. We had a particularly foggy morning yesterday and a plane flew quite low and close to us. We couldn’t see it but it sounded as though it were right off the port beam and gave us a bit of a shock. Today seems to be brightening up though and I have high hopes that we will be able to recover ourselves in the next day or two. Everyone’s changed their clothes and brushed their teeth and we feel alive again and ready to face the rest of the crossing. |
AuthorsAdam and Nikki Archives
August 2015
Categories |