Day 3 and Day 4: English Channel

Day 3

It's day three and I'm struggling to get out of the English Channel. For most of yesterday I had a South Westerly on the nose and a mountainous sea of swells and waves also against me. It made tacking an almost pointless exercise as it took me so far away from my desired course. Today the wind is up, a force 5 or 6 and the sea state is pretty lively. It's unrelenting and beautiful. Aisling slams and bashes and I pray that nothing will break. It's hard to relax when the boat is being pounded so hard but I think she can take it. Being out on deck is amazing and exhilarating as well as strenuous and wet. Being below decks is mercifully drier but very noisy and really hard to do the most simplest of tasks because of the constant movement. The wind is due to drop later but I suspect that the sea state will remain the same. I hope I can keep heading south west and I look forward to getting some sunshine to dry everything out below decks. Sunday morning.

Day 4

I was caught up in a near gale off the Brest Peninsula, north west France, having taken advantage of the strong winds to plough myself through the fetching seas under double reef, having eaten survival rations and flapjacks because cooking a meal was impossible. My solar panel fried from salt water ingress, the entry hatch got stuck shut at two points, one with me trapped inside, and the other with me shut out on the deck. Not what you want in a gale. I gave up plotting my course on the paper chart because the chart table became too wet from green water coming in through a gap in the hatch. Everything becoming damper and wetter. When things had calmed down I took stock and felt quite miserable. It's so frustrating when, aha, things don't go my way. So I tried to be philosophical and accept things as they are. Try not to indulge in the voice that tells me that living in a nice house in plymouth would be much nicer. And then the night, just enough wind to tack south east and south west. Not a star in the sky, absolute peace outside, a calm sea and very dark. This morning brings a new day! Not that there's a separation point in this mode of travel. 6am starts with porridge, I still have lingering sea sickness so it's a challenge to eat anything much. This morning a flakey breeze, one of those breezes that makes the boat rock and the sails flap for 1 knot of speed. I'm writing this sat on the deck amidships, there's a few big ships passing. The swell here is getting bigger, the motor is on. There's no wind at all predicted until Tuesday so I'm burning some diesel. If anyone knows what those pink and blue pasty shaped creatures that float by are, please let me know!

(Posted by Nick. Whilst at sea Dan has a text-only email facility which he's used to email me this blog.)