West of Portugal: Position update & blog

Hay Viento!

After motoring through the night and all of the next morning, the wind finally came! The afternoon saw us on a steady reach with the wind coming from the North West, the swell from the north surging us forwards at great speed, at last! The Wind Gods have shown a little mercy and off we fly!

Nighttime came and the wind built and veered to the North putting us just off a dead run, not so comfortable but very fast, heading up 7 knots in the swell surges, which is quite fast for my little 31 footer. Time to reef, a couple of hours, time to number two reef, with the gib the size of a handkerchief. The main was stealing the wind and the gib snapped and cracked her sheet all night but I wanted to keep her out for balance and stability. Belowdecks the noise was unbelievably loud. With the constant misgiving that we could make a gybe if the wind suddenly changed direction, it was hard to relax and it didn't make for a comfortable night.

"The sea, like my mistress, takes my hand and leads me along, but then she could slap me down in a moment of disdain!"

Dawn comes, I make coffee and porridge, the wind has lessened slightly and I think about lowering the main and running on the gib only. What was bad, then became intolerable, rocking and rolling and yawing like a crazy thing, I cannot bear it for long. I'm about 100 nm off the Portuguese coast and I have plenty of sea room so I make a south east tack and oh what heaven, we are on a reach again and moving with good speed, water rumbling and thundering, Aisling bounding through the swell.

It's taken me less than a week to begin to learn the laws of the weather and the sea. Any illusion that I had that you can sail where you want and when you want have quickly evaporated. I think that in the 900 miles I've done since leaving Weir Quay, I've had maybe 100 miles of the type of sailing that we all dream about; sunshine, blue sea, flat sea, nice and smooth and stable with replete sails and a 10 degree heel. The other 800 have been head banging, noisy, intolerable at times, stressful or a complete non event!

One of the things I realised yesterday is that in the ocean, there is no beginning and there is no end, and this feels like a good reflection of life.

Number of ships seen - a handful

Number of dolphins swimming alongside the boat - lots and lots

Number of personal articles lost overboard - 1 hat and 1 sock!

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