Today: Slalom in Squall Valley; meet TGPYLTF’s sister; inspired
by the Pogues; Water Water Everywhere..;
Greetings fair readers, we hope that you are riding the euphoria of the
arrival of “hump” day - Wednesday—the day in the week that signals the coming
weekend is closer than the one just passed... I wonder who really thinks that
way. In any event, we hope it was a good one for you.
It seems the most common way for you to read this blog is over your morning
cuppa, so grab your coffee, tea (for Lorraine it has to be from Serious Coffee,
go on, have the blue berry muffin as well) and then we can start. This Blog is a
little later than usual as it was written on the 04:00 –07:00 watch, but, it
also means that the author had to tidy up after dinner (another master class of
one pot wonders by Bill) and with it having been pretty busy the night before,
the crew opted to get to bed a bit earlier than usual.
In any event, here goes...
So, speaking of busy nights (this would be Tuesday), it had been another
lovely day with consistent winds, there were a few clouds making their way but
nothing major, we had avoided the rain that had been forecast for our region and
so as we headed into the night, we were pretty relaxed. That is until you know
who (the one with Hyper-Squall-itis) taps on the door at stupid o’clock, because
he was on the stupid o’clock shift) and says “Bravest Captain, we are being
beset by vigilante Squalls that threaten our very existence”... or maybe it was
just “Hey, come take a look at these clouds”. In any event, upon arrival at the
helm, it was clear that the weather gods had decided to punish Mike again—for
what we are not sure- -but, for the next 90 mins we made Lindsay Vaughn
(American ski team, not sure if i spelt it correctly) going down the slalom in
Squall Valley (pretty clever changing the name of the ski hill too) look like a
beginner. We made more moves than Travolta in Saturday Night Fever; I could go
on, but, get the picture? What is challenging with these clouds is that they are
not all fully formed when they start their approach and so what looks like an
OK, slightly darkish cloud when it is a couple miles away all of a sudden, say
half a mile away, becomes rather less OK. So part of our process is guessing
which cloud will next be of concern and from what direction. Well, dear reader
you would think that the cloud will come from the direction of the wind—really
quite simple. Not so, oh future meteorologists—depending upon something that we
haven’t figured out, each cloud can take its own deviation from the main
direction of the wind. So here are a couple terms that, if you throw them into
your conversations with friends will make them think you are a true sailor...
Backing and Veering. Sounds like a drivers licence test doesn’t it. So, if
the wind veers, it means that it changing in a counter clockwise direction and
if the wind backs it is, ok you should figure this out—changing in a clock wise
direction. So, if you are sitting at the helm of Libeccio and one of these
clouds is coming towards, you (at this point we are all doing the Jaws theme
song in our heads... you can too.. da dunt, da dunt..etc) try to guess if it is
going to veer or back. We must have guessed OK, as we were able to avoid being
in front of one of these clouds and only had the slightest of sprinkles of
rain. Once the path was clear, it was back to bed for couple hours as my
watch follows Mikes—guess how many squalls I had to dodge in my shift... none.
We are thinking of sending for the Search and Rescue helicopter to get Mike to
safety.
We seemed to have a bad day with the gods on Weds- you will recall that
earlier on in the trip we were visited by the lesser known God of Pushing Your
Luck Too Far? Well, he has a sister goddess that punishes you if you extrapolate
past performance as an indicator of the future called, you guessed it The God of
Extrapolating Your Past Performance As An Indicator of The Future- why couldn’t
their parents named them something a little more easy to say? Ok ,so get the
point you all are saying (why? I am on a 3 hour watch with nothing better to
do!).. well, we had had a few days of pretty good performance- if we do say
ourselves. For the past three days we had been in the top 10 fastest boats
(excluding the racing class) and had moved up through the fleet by 30 places.
Even Lewis Hamilton (British formula one driver) would have been impressed with
our performance. We were averaging 7 – 8 knots without breaking a sweat... and
so we made the fatal mistake of starting to estimate our arrival. No sooner had
we said, “if we average 6 knots...” then the wind fell from an average of 15 kn
to an average of 10kn.. and with it our speed also dropped to an average of less
than 5. No biggie you say—well spread over the next few days, it would mean
losing 3/4 of a day.
The drop in wind did, however, give us the most relaxing day we have had so
far. I know, you have been a bit worried about the frenetic pace that we are
living at and were concerned that we might be suffering from exhaustion,
stress and malnutrition. With the wind dropping, we also had virtually no clouds
(didn’t stop Mike from constantly scanning the horizon) and the waves flattened.
Izzy stayed with us, but, you could tell she was looking for more wind. So, we
actually started to read some books- at times it was like a library... only the
sound of the waves and Izzy fluttering from time to time. Almost on cue, the
humidity dropped from its normal 80% to mid 60%’s and the temperature was a
pleasant 26 C. It might have been that each of the crew had a wee snooze as
well, but, some claim they were reading (ya, right). This lasted right
through to dinner (did I mention Bill cooked?) and it was only until we had put
away the dishes and everyone was ready to settle down to their prewatch sleeps
that the wind gently picked up to the range we prefer which is 13 – 18kn—a
little precise we know.
Over night we will have broken the 500 nm barrier which inspired the
reference to the Pogues (i hope it is spelt correctly)—this may be an easy one
for you, but, today’s question is Why? Then if you know, you can picture us
re-enacting the song and singing the only bit that we would remember..
We recently were asked about our water situation- its fine dear, we take
pills for it...no not retention, but, consumption. Ah, got it. On the boat
we have a water maker- it basically takes in salt water, uses a couple filters
to take out the bigger bits in the water and then uses high pressure to push the
water through a membrane. The holes in the membrane are so small that only water
can get through and no hangers on like salt can squeeze through at the same
time. If you recall high school science, then this process is called
reverse osmosis. In any event, we have two water tanks totalling 700 liters.
With the expected consumption per person of 2 liters per day, this should give
us about 85 days.. plenty for the ARC which at worst should be no more that 30
days. So we have enough in each individual water tank to see us through the trip
and so we always maintain at least one full tank just in case the water maker
decides to take a holiday. Luckily, it hasn’t and so we can replenish our water
and have enjoyed daily showers and been able to run the washing machine. Makes
for a nice smelling boat.
Talking about a nice smelling boat, (using a boxing announcer’s voice) in
tonight’s Culinary Corner is Bill, the Bronx Bomber... undefeated champion
of the one-pot wonders cook book and a great guy to follow up on clean up as he
only uses one pot...well, except for tonight. He wowed the crew with his Chicken
Divine which was, you got it, Divine- a chicken breast, baked with a topping of
mushrooms, carrots, peas and mushroom soup along with a rice pilaf. Owing to
some dietary restrictions, he also did the same but with out the mushroom soup,
isn’t he thoughtful?
So that was Weds, frankly, we need a rest and so off to bed we went until
our respective watches.
Hope you are all well, take care
The crew of
Libeccio