Author: helen

So far I’ve been pretty good at staying on track during my watches. In previous trips I’ve tended to go off my own way thinking that the boat sails better in that direction or that it looks quicker that way. Since then I’ve learnt better and realised that Steve has calculated these tracks based on current, wind direction and potentiality wind speed. Although it may look like its a longer route, it is in fact the quickest way to our destination. Still whenever John takes over from me, he looks in trepidation at the chart fearing how far we’ve wondered off. Today to his relief it was only twenty feet!

The wind has been consistently in the late teens and from the south east, so we continue to make good progress.

No special visitors today although we see lots and lot and lots of flying fish, sometimes providing amazing formations and patterns as they skim over the waves.

We caught four fish today. Three got away and one was too small to keep. Fishing is definitely a male thing. I haven’t met one female on all the other boats we’ve become acquainted with who has any real interest in the fishing process. We certainly like cooking and eating the catch and even get quite excited when a fish is being caught. However men can spend hours talking about fishing gears, making lures and playing with their tackles!!!!

My night watch was dark and tedious.

Wind, wind lots of wind. Its amazing how obsess we get about wind once we’re under way. We have perfect wind speed for our boat at the moment, late teens to twenty knots. On my shift I was making about 8 knots an hour. Waves are still a bit choppy but we’ve turned west slightly away from the wind and waves so the ride is more pleasant.

In the afternoon we caught a small mahi mahi. It wasn’t worth keeping so Steve decided to use it as bait. We didn’t attract any more fish but we did attract a large pod of Short-finned Pilot Whales. There must have been about fifteen of them. They chased and swam by our boat for about thirty minutes. They weren’t too big, on average about fourteen to sixteen feet long. We saw a mother and baby. The baby was about six feet long. They swam like dolphins and had a white making on their back. We all felt quite high after their visit. It really was an amazing sight.

I woke up feeling terrible about our torn code zero sail. Although we’ve had it up in stronger winds before there must have been a weakness in the sail from the last tear. But still, if I had made up my mind sooner and been more decisive, we could have saved the sail. Consolation was that we had lots of wind this morning, way up in the high teens. We were flying at seven to eight knots and regenerating too. I felt exhilarated sitting up at the helm, feeling the boat soar through the water and watching the white crested waves all around us. I also felt sooth and comforted.

There is a downside to lots of wind and that is lots of choppy waves. If we were sailing down wind, the boat would flow with the wind and waves and hence provide an smoother motion and be easier on the boat. However we are still trying to head south and so are sailing almost up wind or to the beam (side). This means we are crushing into the choppy waves or have waves bashing onto the side of our hull. The banging and slapping noise of the waves fills the inside cabins and is pretty horrible. Everything creaks, squeaks and shakes and you wonder if the whole boat is going to fall apart.

Unlike a mono hull, catamarans do not heal over on to its side. This means that most things stay upright on a catamaran. I rarely put things away when we’re on the move and we often have tall cups, bowls and even bottles out on the tables while we’re sailing. This is great but the erratic side to side rocking motion of the cat does take getting use to. Naturally as the wind and the waves increases this erratic motion also increases and can become quite uncomfortable. I know I’m complaining. I wanted wind and I got it. I just forgot about the choppy waves.

In the late afternoon we caught our first fish of the trip. A nice medium size mahi mahi. We decided it was the classical music we were blaring out that attracted the fish. At sunset dozens of dolphins came out to play. Watching dolphins dance to Mozart was pretty cool. My night shift was plain sailing.

Already the days are merging, one into another. The wind decreased in the morning so we put out the code zero sail. I finished the Time Travelers Wife which left me a little sad. The wind picked up again in the afternoon. We were making such good progress that Steve decided to leave the code zero up at sunset. I wasn’t too keen as the last time we had it up at night, the wind increased and tore our code zero while on my shift. Bringing down the code zero at night is also difficult. All three of us has to be up to do it easily which means waking two people up from their much needed sleep. However the wind seemed consistent and the thought of making good progress throughout the night finally swung us.

When I took over from Steve at 11pm the wind was a little stronger but still within the safe strength for our code zero. We were making excellent progress and regenerating too. I kept an close eye on the the wind for a couple of hours and all was fine. Then I began to notice these occasional gusts were the wind really picked up. Quickly it would go back to normal strength and I would relax. However these gusts began to come more often and I began dithering. Should I fall off and release the pressure on the sail just in case these gust should continue increasing. This would mean going off our track and heading more west than our preferred south heading. Or should I wake up the boys and bring down the code zero. We could then put up the main and head sails and continue with our preferred heading. I dithered too long. There was a sudden bang the code zero tore from top to bottom!

When I woke up this morning I was delighted to discover we had wind and we were sailing. It wasn’t coming from a perfect direction but at least we were heading west. I felt we were flying but in reality we were only going about 5 knots. Compared with our recent speed record, we were flying. As the day progressed the wind increase a little allowing us to occasionally hit 6 knots!
In general it was a lazy day. I’m reading ‘The Time Travelers Wife’ which is pretty engrossing. Its certainly passing the time away.
When I took over for my night shift the wind had picked up even more and was coming from the right direction. We were averaging over 6 knots, it was wonderful. Near the end of my shift I went downstairs to put a few things away in my cabin. Steve suddenly wakes up and shouts ‘There’s water on me’. When we switched on the light there was a wet fish on him. He’d opened the top hatch for some air and the flying fish must have got in from the deck. Of course the bed stank of fish so we had to change the sheets and Steve to shower. At least we caught one fish today.