Wind, sea and a mountain of rain!

Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmen by Mary Blewitt lies on the cushion where I left it several hours before. I decided to have another look to try to enhance my grasp of the subject and then I glanced at the light through the small port side window from the cabin. Another one coming, only this time I know what to do.

This morning at ten I was feeling exasperatingly bored, I shook out the reef that I'd put in a few hours earlier almost with a sense of, can we get there any quicker? A bit like shaking my fist at 1200 more miles, Churlish impatience, I will learn...

As if to quell my growing sense of day to day monotony, some new thing was provided to spice up my day! I looked to the south, the sky darkening with a low line of black clouds in a band, and evidence of rain falling. There were some claw like puffy black bits too with their tendrils spreading in different directions. That, I thought to myself, is a squall. I'd read about squalls and knew to expect them in the Doldrums, this strip of ocean north of the equator. It looked really quite foreboding, stretched out across my path and I decided to re reef the main, a double would have been better...

First the light, everything about the boat feels very white against a back drop of dark where the sea has become gunmetal grey and the skies are darkening even more. The wind starts to build and I furl in the gib and start to wish I'd double reefed. The sea starts to build and a light spattering of rain starts to fall, the first I've seen in months at sea. And I'm thinking, OK, washboards in place, put a jacket on, belt and clip on line, casting my eye around the deck to look for any vulnerability.

Building, wind starting to rush now, and rain, rain in lashings, and waves breaking over the beam. I am hit alternately with the cool rain and the warm sea, it becomes so strong that I cannot look to it for fear of hurting my eyes. The main sail is sheeted out just enough to catch the wind with a little flapping and we are making 4 knots. Visibility closing in and suddenly we are down to 100 yards as the rain really hits. I look to my left at the sea. It is no longer raising with its wavelets, more subdued and flattened hummocks with spray flying along the surface, an undulating hazy mass that is wrought by the gale and the onslaught of water.

I keep my head about me, holding onto the main sheet, ready to let fly if it's needed. The Monitor steering seems to be holding out well, the vane yielding in the rush.

I find it important at sea to discriminate exactly what is going on. I learned on my uk circumnavigation that it's an easy trap to fall into, become embroiled in what feels like a drama and then become mentally overwhelmed. I keep a cool head, yes it's very dramatic, but let's break it down. The boat is not healing badly, she has not too much sail. What she has is spilling the wind perfectly with very little flogging. We are keeping a constant course, the waves are not so big as to be an issue breaking on the beam, and yes there's an awful lot of water, perfect for washing sail and deck! I decide that unless anything changes, everything is ok and all is under control.

After half an hour I can see light in the clouds and we start to come through. Visibility returns and wind drops. Bizarrely, within 20 minutes we are becalmed, barely making 2 knots. But there's lots of clouds in the sky, my sense tells me that the wind will return, and it does, and within another 20 minutes we are bounding along at 5knots with scorching hot sunshine. It is an unbelievable chain of contrasting events. This afternoon has been spent DODGING squalls! Successfully so. I have never seen such a variety of different clouds as I did as I sat in the cockpit munching my dinner straight from the pan, the same pan that I used on my trip to Istanbul, sat on the back of my bike the whole time, £3.99 from the Chino in Durnford Street!

Night is falling and I wonder how it will be. Double reefed main means I can furl the jib and quickly be in control if I need to. I can't see it coming in the dark, it could be a long night!

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