Shenanigan - Night Sailing
A few nights ago Brian said he had experienced the best sailing of his
whole life. The wind was manageable, the seas provided the entertainment
and exhilaration. Christopher recorded speeds of 12 knots on his watch;
which is double what we usually do. Last night was not so entertaining
however! I was an hour into my watch settled with my Kindle, and had just
stated reading ‘The Kite Runner’, the Hydrovane was steering a good course, when
at 3am the wind and sea began to pick up pace. Then it started to rain. Time to
reef. I woke Brian as I needed a bit of help – we needed three reefs in the main
sail and had to furl a good amount of jib and we were still careering
along. The rain became torrential and we became very, very wet. Just to
make sure we were soaked to the skin a huge wave crashed high over the front of
the boat and landed on us both. It’s a good job we both have the same
sense of humour – we looked at each other and laughed! There was nothing
else for it but to sit it out. So we did. We sat in the cockpit in the
dark and pouring rain watching the lightning, drinking hot chocolate and eating
shortbread. At 7am the wind dropped suddenly from 25 knots to less than 7
as we hit the eye of the heavy weather. Sure enough we were soon catapulted out
the other side! The rain thankfully subsided a couple of hours later and
we have spent the day, not very successfully, trying to dry out wet clothes!
It’s very calm now and we have put the engine on which has made the boat nice
and flat so I can type easily!
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