There has been lots happening in the last 12 hours to
entertain us, to make up for two days of pretty well just drifting in no wind.
It is very frustrating that having worked hard to get a point at the scoring
gate, others who didn't have got the jump on us and are now doing much better
in the distance to finish. Anyway, as we know, anything can happen, so we will
continue to work hard to get further up the leader board.
Last night on the midnight to 3am shift I became aware of
a noise off the starboard side of the boat. It sounded like water breaking over
rocks and became gradually louder. It was a pitch black night with no moon, as
there was heavy cloud cover. We knew we weren’t near any rocks or shallow water
but checked the chart again, just in case. It started to become a little scary,
as whatever it was got closer, the noise becoming louder. We called Ben on deck
just as the waterspout passed across the front of the boat and hovered on the
port side. It was a mini tornado, about the 20-25 meters in diameter. With a
torch light on it, we could just see the water swirling around. We had to
rapidly drop the windseeker, the light weight head sail, which was up. This was
followed by the very heavy rain of a squall, but in the pitch dark not
appropriate to get the shower gel out and have a wash. All very exciting. Our
Canadian crew member Greg, who sails a lot along the eastern US coast, greeted
our excitement as he came up on watch with, "Haven't you seen a water
spout before?". “Well no” , was my reply “I haven't”. They are very rare,
if they happen at all around Britain. Apparently they are quite common off the
coast of Florida. Anyway, it was an amazing thing to see for the first time and
I will remember it for a very long time.
During our 6 - 9am watch, we had the fishing line out and
caught a Spanish Mackerel, judged to be about 6-7 kgs and I would say just
under a meter in length. This was expertly filleted immediately by our 1st mate
Will, who was a head chef in a former life. It's on the menu for lunch. All
this was going on while those with jobs sailing the boat tried not to get
distracted and keep the kite trimmed. We do not want another wrap.
No comments:
Post a Comment