I'm so glad thats over! I just crawled into my bunk having cooked and eaten lunch. And I am exhausted. As we crawl our way up the Portugese coast, finally out of the Med and heading North, the seas have a distinct Atlantic 3 meter swell topped with added 2 meter, choppy waves from which a cold salt spray treats us regularly to a surprising faceful. And it's about to get alot worse according to the latest weather report. Splendid.
It took me 2 whole hours to make a minestroni soup with potato gnocci. This boat was designed excellently for racing - for open sea passages it was not. She rolls like a pig in a mud and worse. Hense our average speed of 5 knots. My Dad's plastic 38 footer can go faster than that.
The unpredictable motion of the sea caught me off guard more than once sending me flying. You can't just get a couple of onions out of the drawer and chop away in a sea like this, everything has to be done one at a time, slowly and systematically whilst 'brace-bracing' up against the cupboards. Either that or play an endless game of 'chase the onion around the boat'.
The crew are pretty knackered and very fed up with living in this exagerated, continuous rolling. If you're not on watch, the only other place you can be is in your bunk. But a short kip is a tense affair when one is wedging oneself into the confines of a bunk and lee cloth in the attempt to stay in one spot long enough before the next big wave and bow-slammer catapault you skywards. For the partially dozing, finding your body airborne above your bunk is most odd. And the landing will put an end to any idea of sleep.
And here I am holding on tightly in my bunk about to attempt the impossible. So here we go, wish me luck.
Cheers!
