The
Saga continues... AKA One 48 hour story that I am very glad is not mine to
tell!
Later:
OK. I was wrong. My indecisiveness had not hit an all-time high.
After
chilling in Hamburg for a few days (spent mostly drinking expensive premium
venti hot chocolates and taking advantage of the free internet at Starbucks to
chat with my oldest son online or walking the streets eating cheap but amazing
Turkish doner kebabs) I wrote Olve a wee note apologizing for having been
spooked and walking and asking if I could get back on the boat in France. Turns
out they were not on their way to France after all, they’d done a couple miles
out in the North Sea, turned back, and were still in Denmark. They’d decided to
get a few things fixed before going on. Well shucky-darn, wish I’d been there
to tell them that woulda’ been a good idea.
I
checked the new weather forecast, saw that the wind was down to 15 knots
gusting to 30 (instead of 30 knots gusting to 60) and that the sun was coming
out, turned back myself, tucked my figurative tail between my legs, and
slinked, somewhat shamefaced, back to the boat.
Turns
out I’d missed a storm. Which is not, of course, my story to tell.
Ida:
Emily, mostly I was glad that you weren’t with us. I was very very glad that
you weren’t here. You would not have been happy.
Aitor:
It was a storm. It was a huge storm. I was so sick. I vomited and vomited until
I couldn’t vomit anymore and then I kept on vomiting.
Olve:
Yes. It was a storm. The wind was steady about 50 knots gusting higher maybe.
Water was washing right over the decks with every wave. I was up to my knees in
water in the cockpit all the time.
Ida:
Olve was sleeping when we first lost power and I didn’t know where we were
going so after two hours I tried to turn on the engine but it wouldn’t start. I
thought I just didn’t know how to turn it on so I sailed for another two hours
and then I woke up Olve but he couldn’t get the engine started either.
Aitor:
I have never been so sick in my life.
Olve:
We started with four sails up and took them down one by one. It took Ida about
an hour and a half to take each sail down. She was up on deck getting washed by
wave after wave. After that we sailed with just one foresail.
Ida:
It was so hard to pull the sails down. I didn’t think I was strong enough to do
it. But Olve said I had to so I just stayed up on deck and pulled and pulled
and pulled. I have never been so tired in my life.
Olve:
Ida couldn’t tighten the back stay. She had to get Aitor up to do it. It’s a
good thing he could because that was the only thing that kept us up.
Aitor:
I’m learning new things every day. Not just things about sailing, things about
myself.
Ida:
By the end I had been up for 52 hours straight.
Olve:
We broke the new wind generator going through the lock – we don’t talk about
that.
Aitor:
It was bad communication. We crashed into another boat. It was our fault. I
don’t like to think about that moment.
Olve:
If we’d had the wind generator we’d have had enough power to keep the computer
running and then we would have had charts so we’d have known where we were.
Ida:
Aitor was so sick he was totally useless. There were really only two of us.
Olve:
The engine wouldn’t start. We had no power, no computer, no charts, no lights,
no bilge pump. We didn’t know where we were, it was night, there were windmills
all over the place and shoals where the sea was too shallow, at one point there
was only three feet of water below the boat. I’ve worked in this part of the
sea before and know it but he lights and bouys are confusing at night when
you’re lost. The wind kept blowing us towards the shore. We sailed around in
circles trying to stay where it was deep all night until it got light and we
could see where to go.
Aitor:
I spent a lot of money today. I bought new rain pants and new boots.
Olve:
We were all wet. Everyone was wet. Everything was wet.
Aitor:
I have no money left.
Ida:
The hatches leaked rainwater first and then sea water.
Olve:
When the fresh water tank broke and the water poured into the hold all around
the engine it made a weird gonging sound. I went down and tasted the water and
was so glad that it was fresh because then I knew that the boat wasn’t leaking.
Aitor:
Inside it stank like acid. Outside it was terrifying.
Olve:
I spent 18 hours straight on the wheel and all I had was one can of coke.
Ida:
He had some cans of fish in his pocket that he thought he could pull out and eat
with his fingers at some point but he didn’t have time. (Sorry, I just have to
put in an editorial comment here, I can’t resist. Cans of fish? How Swedish is
that?)
Olve:
We’re going to sort out all the paper charts and have a system so we can find
them if we need them.
Aitor:
The boat was moving so much.
Ida:
There are SO many good tools down there in the bilge. We lost every flashlight we
have down there.
Olve:
That was when we were still trying to fix the engine, before the storm got
really bad.
Aitor:
After 24 hours I was way too tired to stay up in the cockpit awake but way too
sick to go below and sleep.
Ida:
It was bad. It was really really bad. Olve thought we were going to have to
abandon ship and use the life rafts.
Olve:
The phosphorescence was stunning. Out there in the night it was so dark because
of the clouds and not a light on anywhere in the boat but the wind was so
strong… it was the most amazing phosphorescence I have ever seen in my life.
Every wave that crashed over the boat was glowing bright green.
Ida:
Olve was outstanding. I got to the point where I was too tired but Olve just
kept going. He was incredible. I can’t describe how good he was.
Olve:
Each time we sailed in to where it was only 20 feet deep instead of 60 the
waves got huge and started to crash right over the side of the boat. The rails
were in the water. A couple times so much water came over the side that the
cockpit was completely full of water.
Aitor:
I came up and Olve told me to help him go about. Couldn’t he see that I was too
sick? There was nothing left in my stomach but I was heaving anyway. But he
yelled at me to do the jib sheets and my stomach was so empty I knew nothing
would come up so I did the jib sheets and vomited nothing at the same time.
Ida:
You would not have been happy Emily.
Olve:
As soon as it was light we started sailing into the nearest harbour but it was
hard. The wind was howling and the waves were huge and we had 3 knots of
current against us and we had to tack back and forth again and again.
Aitor:
Olve was fantastic. I would have thought that it was impossible to sail in here
in that wind but he did it. I still can’t believe that it was possible to sail
in here with no motor.
Ida:
When we got in we all just wanted to hug the wall.
Aitor:
It was 6:30 in the morning when we got here and we went to bed and we slept, we slept for hours.
So
now the generator is still not working, the new wind generators have been
broken, the main engine has yet another undiagnosed problem that has
incapacitated it, the fresh water tank has broken… the boat is way way more of
a disaster zone than ever. Are the toilets fixed?, I ask. No. And I note that
the boom vang block is still broken.
Why,
exactly, did I come back?
Ida
is leaving, she is due to go back to work, and a new young guy has been found
to replace her. I get the impression he is disappointed that he missed the
storm. ‘Sailing in nice weather, what’s special about that?’, he says, ‘but
sailing right on the edge, at the maximum you can do, that’s when it becomes
interesting.’
Olve
knew the condition of the ship when we were in the canal. We had read the same weather forecast. I decided to jump ship. He decided to go to sea. We were both right. I didn't want to be there. Both he and the boat proved themselves seaworthy, able to function together perfectly well for hours on end in adverse
conditions (let me repeat: no engine, no generator, no alternate power source,
no nav computer, no charts, no knowing where you are or where you’re going, no
lights, no way for other boats to see you, no radar, no AIS, no bilge pump to
empty the boat if water gets in, a dark night, heavy rain, heavy winds,
shallow waters, many obstructions – in this case windmill fields - and a busy
section of the sea with other boats likely…) Olve
is happy to sail at 50 knots, would go out anytime at 50 knots, I mean why not,
both he and the boat can easily handle it, whereas I would always choose to
wait two days until after bad weather has passed and go out at 20 knots. I
realize that you need to be able to sail in 50 knots, that sometimes at sea an
unavoidable storm comes by, but I would never choose to leave port if I knew
that that was the weather and he sees no reason not to. To me 50 knots is
where, if things start to go wrong, they can go very wrong very fast. To him 50 knots is
thriling. We are both right; we just see different sides of the same coin.
My
question last week was: Is this how I want to sail? I stated that I thought the
boat was seaworthy and that the captain was competent and, obviously, both are
true. I am more sure now than
ever that they will make it round the world as Olve is apparently fearless. But,
honestly, I am quite happy to have missed the storm, missed being cold and wet, missed being terrified about whether we’d have to abandon ship and take to the life
rafts or not. So my question remains: Is this how I want to sail?
I
can’t believe that I have been back less than 24 hours and am considering,
again, jumping ship. I can’t believe it. Am I incapable of making a single
decision and sticking to it? (Apparently.) (When I decided to come back I
didn’t know about the storm.) (Does that change anything?)
Man.
Last year with HS we spent two weeks fixing up the boat and then two weeks
waiting for good weather and then when we got out to sea it turned out that he
didn’t know how to sail. This year Olve is not going to spend two weeks fixing
up the boat or two weeks waiting for good weather but, apparently, when he gets
out to sea he is an awesome sailor.
He
has a great itinerary set up for the fall. It can’t get worse than it was. I
assume. Or could it? We are, after all, scheduled to cross the Atlantic before
the end of hurricane season.
I
note that it is exactly a month since I left home and that I have had one day
of sailing so far.
How
do I get myself into these situations? Oh yes, instead of heading out with
people I know I choose random adventures off the internet and jump.
I
think I want to sail my own boat. Make my own decisions. (But of course I don’t
want to do it on my own… I want a partner to do it with me.)
AARRGGHH!!
