The day after yesterday.
Day 5 at sea.
Lying back in the cockpit, marveling at a pretty amazing sunset i was considering how to spend my last hour on watch for this shift.
Its the first day I’ve felt entirely human so far on this leg. Today also marked a couple of firsts.
1. My first meal
2. Using the rocker in full swing at sea
3. Attempting, and failing at goosing it down wind.
We left Bermuda in convey with The Adventure of Stockholm. It ended up being a manic departure. (like most are with me!) When we had awoken that morning Jacques had checked the engine one last time. He had changed the filters the day before and when he looked in the engine locker the fuel filter had been leaking. I was sent to shore to do last minute groceries, shower and email. Nothing I could seem to get done quick enough and without interruption.
By the time I got back to the yacht, Jacques had hitched a ride in with someone else and I found Thula Thula dangerously close to another yacht. A lot of “discussion” took place across the water with the neighbouring yacht owner and we both promptly shifted anchor to fix the situation.
I headed back to shore where I bumped into Jacques and passed on the yacht report, to which we headed to customs to get our departure documents sorted.
When we returned to the yacht I got the yacht prepped for sea whilst Jacques took the dinghy back to shore for one last run. We had been told over radio that Elin and the gang were ready and awaiting us for departure.
About 15mins later Jacques returns, we pack down the dinghy, check all is in order and then….. we opened the engine locker…. Yep, you guessed it, leaking fuel. (Insert 20 year old self, lying on the grass at Maitland Rd under the good old Holden, Apollo) Jacques, in haste earlier had missed a seal which now rendered the filter attached useless and jammed under a poor seal. Long story short, in about 17 minutes we were refiltered, no leaks and under way! 2:30pm Bermudan time.
We cruised out the anchorage, picking up our buddies on the way and headed out the cut to sea. I’d tried to rig the go pro ready to film our departure as there was meant to be 3 yachts together (Pheonix the German yacht, left 3.5hrs after us, so the sat phone says.) Unfortunately the go pro decided that it would no longer work right as we hoisted sails and were traveling in unison out to sea sails blazing. I did manage to run below and get my phone, so this shot will have to do.
Elin works for WWF and when they heard what she was doing with her year off work they offered to buy the sail. Pretty neat eh!?
Since being at sea I’ll summarise the blur into some dot points
- Sea sick
- Slow going 3-4knots first 12hrs
- Still sea sick
- 11pm Huge unpredicted easterly means crappy headwind forced to tack north -slow
- 12 midday tack south – slow…
- Sea sick – surviving on corn chips and apples
- 11.45pm WIND CHANGE tack back on track (60NM worth of detours so far)
- 6-7knots!
- Sea sickness passes, Jacques cannot sleep in the swell frequency, i on the other hand want food but can’t cook.
- Eat lots of random canned food
- See 4 shooting stars
- Day 4 another wind change. Now travelling down wind
- Down wind for 30hrs at 4 knots… poke me in the eye with a pen please!
- Cook pasta on rocker
- Great sunset, tried to rig go pro off boom… and then it would not film… see awesome iphone picture again
- Wind change at 4am 5-6knots
- Big pod of dolphins
- Fix go pro (kind of) very frustrated
- Write mother an email
- Dophins re show, go pro works! Only one stays to play though 😦
First meal on the rocker post seasickness
Here and now…
Chilling listening to coldplay awaiting the 25knots predicted for the next 2 days. I continue to play nav-guy and now can pretty much do anything sailing Thula Thula unassisted. Jacques said today if he fell overboard I would make incredible headlines as the “girl who sails solo to the Azores”. He sounded chuffed with that. I on the other hand said that if he fell overboard “sometime during watch (4hr window here)” I wouldn’t know where to start the search! We agreed it was best he stayed on board for now, even if it made good headlines. He definitely had a lot covered whilst I was sleeping between shifts those first few days. It been a great team.
Now for the winds!
23rd May video diary – to watch click here
The ocean story 