It is time we had a good moan about the weather. What have they done to the weather? Let’s be fair, not all of it is bad. The winbd has been very good to us. Rarely has it been below 15 knots, usually it’s around 20 knots and only sporadically in the 25-30 range. And it keeps coming from a favourable direction as well, so no complaints there. However, we should be worrying about putting on enough suntan lotion, not about the necessity to wear an extra layer of fleece, let alone about wearing boots! The sea water temperature in the meantime has risen to 26 degrees, so that’s quite all right, but the air is chilly. Of course it is all a matter of perspective and expectation. From where we stand it could be better, from the perspective of most of the readers of this blog it just might be considered that we are nagging. But think of the consequences of living under an overcast sky…. Our whole energy system, with the beautiful solar panels, is hardly giving us any benefit and we have to run the engine for a couple of hours a day; not good.
Well, enough moaning. We ‘re having a great time of it. By and large the movements of Nelly Rose are very gentle as she rolls along and surfs of the occasional wave reaching a highest speed of 12.6 knots sofar. Between those exilerating moments we happily cruise along at speeds usually between 7-8 knots, without any effort from the crew. We’re still wing on wing with the boom on starboard, as it has been from the start with the notable exception of course of our little mishap yesterday. During Hanneke’s watch last night the wind dropped a bit more than usual and our speed came down as a consequence. Hanneke was delighted, as that gave 4 or 5 dolphins a chance to catch up and toy around the boat a little.
Not all is always plain sailing though. This morning at breakfast, which is when we schedule our major mishaps, we were hit by a freak wave, that sent all eggs, juices and serials flying through the cabin. Just to let you know, that we do get our fair share of hardship here as well.
Pip pip