Squalls

It is the morning of our first full day at sea and HS is supposed to be on watch but something went wrong with the fridge motor cooling water intake and he is down in the bowels of the ship under the floor below the table fixing it. I have handed him tool after tool and he has surfaced once or twice to rummage in obscure cupboards for extra parts. Nick is sleeping. ‘Do you want me to take over your watch?’ I ask HS, knowing that the answer will be yes. It is so I do. Right then of course the wind starts to go up. It has been a very gentle steady 8 knots so we have lots of sail out. I watch the wind speed rise, 10, 12, 18, 20 knots and higher. I know that the sails will have to be reefed, NOW, and that I do not feel competent to do it all on my own the very first time in winds that are picking up so very quickly. I peek at HS but he is busy down below floor level and so I wake up Nick and ask for his help. The wind is 24 knots and still rising. Nick is amazing, ‘Let’s reef!’ he says and together we go out into what is all of a sudden heavy cold beating rain, the kind that feels like shards of ice are being driven into you. The waves are suddenly steeper and the wind is whipping the tops off them as they crash in spectacular whitecaps. ‘Stay in the cockpit,’ Nick advises, ‘and hang on!’ This is good advice. The boat is charging up one side of the waves and racing back down the other tipping this way and that, seriously overpowered. We fuss with the lines, neither of us having reefed this particular boat before, and within minutes we are soaked to the skin but have a LOT less sail out. Nick and I both glance at the wind speed gauge. 32 knots and still climbing! Wow! We stand there for a moment assessing the sails, do a 360 scan for other boats since we are outside anyway, though the rain is so heavy that there is practically no visibility, and then retreat, dripping, back in through the hatchway to the interior of the boat. It was good fun and great teamwork. We are both pleased with ourselves. Ten minutes later HS finishes his chore and comes to see what’s up. ‘Why is the boat speed down?’ he asks, ‘Why are you both so wet?’ We look at the instrumentation. What? Only 8 knots of wind again? Unbelievable. The squall apparently blew itself out as fast as it blew in. We both go back outside and let out the sails again. Hmph. And, all day, it has carried on like that. Gentle winds, barely enough to sail, with squall after squall coming through each one bringing whipping winds and beating rain for fifteen minutes or so then moving on by leaving little trace that it had ever been there. The sky has been grey all day, dark grey near the rain squalls, and even this evening shows no signs of any letting up. After supper HS is on shift again. It will be Nick’s turn after that. And I hope, I really hope, that by 4 am when I do my second solo night shift, that the line of squalls will have passed by and gone to wherever it is they go and I will have only the gentle 8 knots winds to contend with. Because, let’s be honest here, I do not want to deal with 32 knot winds and driving rain all by myself in the pitch dark. Not on my second night shift. Likely not ever!

Later… I pull myself out of bed at 3:50 am, pee, and report for duty. ‘Ooh, wind speed has just started picking up,’ Nick grins at me, ‘looks like you are just in time for another squall.’ Still half asleep I look at him with pleading eyes and he knows exactly what I am saying but I get no mercy. ‘It’s your shift,’ he says, ‘out you go!’

Sailing Leg 1

Yes! We pack up and get ready to go, we have a last hot meal while the boat is on dock, we don our warm foul-weather gear, and then as the sun starts to fall, we head out across the bay, into the strait, and towards the ocean. There are dozens of BIG ships in this narrow stretch of water some going full steam, some at anchor, others just drifting waiting, perhaps, for their turn to be refuelled, there fast ferries going back and forth, other sail boats heading in different directions, fishing craft going in loops, and even small motor boats just hanging about. The strait separates Africa from Europe, the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean and has been a busy waterway for millennia. Tonight is no exception. I am at the wheel, steering the boat, weaving it between the huge ships, keeping an eye out for smaller boats. Nick and HS are up in the cock pit with me. HS is teaching us how to recognize which ships are headed in which direction by using the AIS, the radar, and by watching their lights. Our primary goal, while at sea, is not to crash into another boat.

My shifts on this first leg will be 4 to 8 in the evening and 4 to 8 in the morning. For those eight hours of the day it will be my responsibility to “keep watch”. This means various things, keeping watch of all boats that are anywhere near us and ensuring that we don’t get too close to them and/or changing course if necessary to avoid collisions, keeping watch on the wind speed and direction and making sure the sails are correctly set, keeping watch on our path and continuously checking that we are following our plotted route, keeping watch on the weather and being prepared to make changes as necessary, if, for example a squall were to be approaching, keeping watch of the lines in the boat, making sure they don’t fall into the water or get tangled or anything, keeping watch of our boat speed and ensuring we are making steady progress but not overpowering the boat… It is all pretty simple and straight forward but, nonetheless, seems at first a big responsibility.

Nick wakes me just before 4 am for my first night shift alone. We are through the strait and out in the open ocean. It is VERY dark out and spitting cold rain. There are about 8 different ships visible, some going the same direction as us, others going opposite direction, still others going perpendicular crossing across our path. Nick gets me to figure out which way each one is going and which ones might possibly be on a collision course before leaving. He also points out a small sailboat, too small to be picked up on the AIS or radar, that is close by but hard to see what with the waves and rain. Then he crawls into his bunk to go to sleep and I am left to panic on my own. The auto-pilot is on, so I steer by pressing buttons on the console instead of turning the wheel, which means that most of what I do is check and re-check our situation and worry about everything. What is the wind speed, is it going up, will it go up, what do I do if it does? How high are the waves, are they going to get bigger? Which ships, heading into the Med, or crossing my path, or on the same route but going faster and overtaking us, might crash into us, and how do I make sure that doesn’t happen, and how close is too close, and when should I take evasive action, and when should I panic? Which direction is the wind coming from and will it change and what do I do if it does? Are there any boats I can see that are not visible on AIS or radar? Are we going fast enough? What could go wrong? Wow it’s dark out! Is my shift over yet? No, another 3 hours and 50 minutes left. Am I going to vomit? Yes. Lots. And again. I worry, throw up, worry some more and then repeat the pattern. Each 15 minutes I stand out in the rain peering at all 360 degrees of the horizon to see if there are any new boats or bouys that I hadn’t yet identified and that I might need to be aware of. I panic, then worry, then panic some more. I know that this is bad for my health but it is positively spooky doing your first solo night shift. HS gets up to check on me. He looks over the situation, nods, and heads off back to bed. ‘No, don’t leave me,’ I want to say. ‘please stay and hold my hand.’  But I can’t get the words out. And I am alone with The Boat and the dark night sky once again. Waves are pretty choppy here, each few seconds the boat is lifted up about 2 meters and then plunges down. We pitch from front to back and roll from side to side and everything seems to be banging and clanking and I don’t know what sounds I ought to be listening for. Yes, positively spooky.

Eventually the sky lightens from black to dark grey and it is morning. The winds pick up and bit as does the rain. HS comes out to do his shift and gratefully I enter the hold and put on my pj’s and crawl into my bunk taking my ‘sickypoo pot’ with me incase I haven’t finished vomiting yet. It’s hard to sleep with all the strange noises and the wild bucking motion of the boat but I curl up under my covers determined to catch a few winks. It will be 4 o’clock again soon.