Flying around the World by sea. ( presently at Sea off the SE coast of South Africa. )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 20 Nov 2010 08:49
|
FRIDAY 19th
NOVEMBER 2010
02.00hrs Ohhhh, it is still honking, 38
/ 40 knots from behind , but we were flying along ,if we had wings we would have
taken off.
The " Rev. Mother Aileen " and "
Fr Neil " took to the bunks, actually Aileen slept in the saloon , which is
always a comfortable
place for a nap. " Fats" loved that
spot and spent many happy hours snoring there to his heart's content
.
keeping everyone entertained with his own
special rendition of sleeping
music...........zzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzz........zzzzzz...Z .
04.00hrs, Dawn theis is always a great
time, It makes you feel that the world has come out of its nightly
slumber
as it waits for the magical Sunrise. which is
usually about 50 minutes later.
06.00hrs, The wind eased back a little to a
comfortable 25 / 28 knots, and it was still directly behind,
S opened up the full main, ans 30mins later set up
a goose winging arrangment while the others maintained their sleeping
records.
We were touching 15.5 knots regularly , and with
relativly flat seas, was wonderfull sailing,
08.00hrs, we were directly opposite " East London "
and had sailed 255.6 n miles in 24 hours, a real record for us,
even if was with the benifit of a great
current.
We had a light breakfast, which included porridge ,
made by Aileen herself and it tasted great.
We read the weather reports and predicitions over
and over again, With nowhere to hide around here if things get nasty,
we must be sure of the weather, It looks that
we will outrun the next weather change, ........
13.00hrs, We altered course to 269T as we now
headed WSW directly for Port Elizebeth with just a mere 75 miles to
go.
A beautifull day for a trip like this, Clear blue
skies, flattish sea's and blue water, and,25 knots of wind from behind and
warm,
in fact it was soooo nice that we all did some sunbathing on deck, Its a
long time since we did that, ( top up the tan )
15.30hrs, BANG. The wind suddenly
changed direction to right on our nose, blowing 20 knots WOW ! all
in 30 seconds, even more wow.
S & N scrambled to undoo the goose wing set up
, and revert back to the normal arrangments,
This new wind built up to 25 / 30 knots
quickly so we had to motor sail with a reef in the main and nothing
else.
The current soon changed as well . ( Murphys Law )
so now we were only doing 7 knots , down from a staggering 15
Knots.
17.30 Aileen did a dinner, and we relaxed for
a while, and only just a while,
This cloud began to build to the SW of us, and
before we knew what was going on, we had a horrendous thunder
storm,
The rain came down in stay rods, so much so, we had
very little visability , and nearly collided with a largs fishing
trawler,
The interesting thing here was that they never
showed on the Radar. nor did any other trawlers for that matter.
and they were big boats.
The lightning was spectacular, even if it was
frightning, but we had to keep going, through thick and
thin.............
SHORTLY, after , we sailed into a huge flock of
Gannets / Boobies , seagulls and all sorts of birds,
Then , we were surrounded by thousands of Spinner
Dolphins, they were everywhere,and jumping clear of the water as they sped
along
through the sea, But thats not all, We
counted about 25 / 30 Whales , all very close, so there is obviously a feeding
frenzie going on here.
This was the most amazing thing we had seen in the
wild life at sea.
To be remembered for
ever.........................................
19.00hrs, The sun appeared again, just before
it vanished behind the horizon as we made our way closer to P.E.
00,00hrs We arrived at the harbour entrance,
all well lit up, again , its lovely to see all the lights along the coast before
we
got to this point. Ohhh happy
out, It was blooming cold again as we nibbled our way into the
harbour
and made our way to the Yacht Club,
We had spoken to " Algoa Y.C " earlier and they had
no marina berth big enough for us, so we were going to have to tie alongside a
trawler,
but we were assured that they were real usuer
friendly. and we would have no problems.
When we finally arrived ot the YC, we found " Wild
Tigres" and " Destiny " tied to a bunch of trawlers, so we rafted up to
them ,
had a brandy and port and vanished into the
scratchers,
Thats all
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde ( Skipper )
|