Part 7, Sailing Las Palmas, Spain – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 18^th 2010

Another beautiful sunrise! The gift of the morning shift.

View from the captains seat

I would never think that I could get into any kind of routine of this rough weather, wave and living condition but just the fact that I woke up 3 minutes before Gunnar blew air in the whistle sending out the sound that had rushed me out of my limited bedtime so many times, I guess was a signal that the body is a remarkable instrument that can adjust and capable of much more than we ever imagine.  

  
So I felt all right with going up 06.00 in the morning after a few hours sleep. I even looked forward to the sunrise – you have to find and capture the positive elements right!

I had a great feeling of festivity on this shift.. I realized that I just had a dream of me having a birthday party. A big one. I received guests, two at a time, in a hall and danced with them into the party area. Unique welcome and lot of celebration. Funny how my dreams focuses on parties in these rolling conditions. Either sub consciousness was trying to protect me from waking up because waves psychically moved me back and forth in the cabin – like dancing in the dreamland – or my brain just wanted to cheer me up:)

When I blew the whistle at 09.00 to get Gunnar up I suggested that we pulled a bit more out of the front sail. It turned out that it was not a wise decision. It immediately cracked further up making us more vulnerable as we lost more speed and since main sail was already broken we were counting on the last square meters of sail. It made Gunnar erupt with the hardest comment to me on the journey: “That was a bad idea!”…

Look at that piece of torn front sail. Only top part give us some tiny speed. Really bad situation. 

As compensation I tried to hoist the healthy part of the main sail but it was in vain. The torn part no matter how much I tried to tie it got stuck on the way up. What could help to speed us up? Any idea was sincerely welcome! Gunnar proposed to set up some kind of linen in the rear end of the boat. I got the blue cover for the main sail. And so it happened that the cover for the main sail became our actual main sail. 

Happy with the new "boosting" main sail situation. Notice the orange whistle bottom right... THE dream robber!

The GPS now confirmed our movement which was heavy assisted by current to 3 knots which was not terrible taking our condition into consideration.  It looked extremely weird and we would not win any speed contest but it after all pushed us a little bit.

With this our new “main sail” up it completely took the rear view but what the heck. Waves were not that massive anymore and if any ship would approach we would just have to rely on that they have seen this small piece of torn sailboat.

I got the cornflakes again with lukewarm milk and slept from 11.00 - 13.00 and enjoyed the afternoon shift from 14.00 – 17.00.  Then I decided to make us some proper hot food. The decision fell on rice with onion, garlic and sausages. Spiced up and including soya and ketchup this turned into a true culinary gourmet dinner. After all it was our first “real” prepared food for 7 days!!! And now I was at it I made sure to make more than enough so that we by any means would have leftovers to fry the coming days. OK I admit it. The food was really nothing special but in this situation it was first class – amazing how basic needs can become such a pleasure!

Smiles were back on our faces now Neptune was behaving better

Now Neptune and the waves were behaving, the captain and I concluded that we could step up the shifts to a duration of 4 hours so after a few hours of sleep the whistle forced me back up in the red lit cockpit at 22.00 hours. Chocolate and fruit gum filled my pockets to support my sleepy condition. But I found myself was back in survival mode and my concentration was in a suspiciously low level. I realized that the planned heading of 210 actually in real life was swinging from 180 – 240 degrees. Again and again I tried to keep concentration just to find myself on the edge of the degrees once more. It was not especially accurate but at least nothing wrong with the direction. We were not moving away from our target...

Daytime heading 220

At 02.30 I was back down in my nest. Dreamland was now my best friend.
Another basic need was embraced with great passion!

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MERRY CHRISTMAS TO MY FAMILY, MY FRIENDS AND TO YOU!!!

Ohh and Happy birthday to my father back home in snowy Synneborre!;)

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Sailing Part stand in – back to the present:

My current "Christmas" place - SANTA Maria. The boat is anchored up in the background.

Christmas party!!!

I have to apologies to all the loyal readers of this blog for some days of radio silence – in the middle of a storm of waves! But something in my present life (yes, I survived the sailing journey;) happened which was so important that I for a short second will forward the plot to present time; Sunday December 12^th – halfway to Christmas.

Christmas has since I was a child meant a lot to me and even though Santa has revealed himself (what the heck; I some years ago even was “him” but found myself running down the neighborhood - in full costume - with my younger sister and brother crying out my name! I would at any given day have been able to run and hide from them and that was also the plan if it wasn’t for my father’s clogs being several sizes too big for my food. I was caught on the holy day and there was no more ho ho ho that Christmas:) 

In Denmark we have a lot of beautiful Christmas traditions and my family especially this involves some bonus elements like spicing up the Christmas hymns in church with extra vocals, having cracked beans in milk to the Christmas dinner and apart from dancing around the Christmas tree we every year find ourselves running in one big line around in the house (and outside!) screaming a specific Christmas song (“nu er det jul igen”). No wonder that birds in winter time go south in our area. It’s crazy fun!

Also there are the Christmas parties with friends and colleagues in the weekends up to the 24^th. Rituals like Christmas food, Christmas beers and snaps, speeches, gift games, songs (semi- or full perverted), and if a copy machine available it would not be used for copying paper… if you know what I mean.

So here I found myself voluntarily away from all that. I was trying to get just a hint of the Christmas spirit by listening to a bunch of the nicest Christmas songs but sitting in the boat while windsurfer passes you on one side in the glittering 25 degree sea and on the other side the beach with people swimming and licking up the sun - it somehow just don’t match these Christmas songs. I guess the mind is really bound up on all the traditions including the cold dark winter!  

I was getting overwhelmed by the Christmas blues.

With this little introduction to my thoughts and Christmas feelings you will better understand how über awesome delighted I was when being invited to a Danish Christmas party here in Cape Verde. A Danish guy I just met 2 days earlier who work here just returned from Denmark with 15 kilos of Danish Christmas party food and drinks – pure gold! Being able to come together for an event that for me was needed greatly was a true gift send from heaven. I couldn’t help it; did print out a crazy Christmas song, prepared Christmas music and did some thoughts on a small speech – Typical ingredients of these Danish Christmas parties… and after all this was the closest you can get to a white Christmas in Cape Verde.

So Sunday afternoon when the Sun was not so hot anymore, we gathered together in a cool bar named CABO bar. It is owned by another Dane.  He turned out to be from the same small town as I. We even went to the same business school the same years. See, it’s a small world!

We were 10 happy party animals. One ended up a little too happy and got seasick. Well she was named Mrs. SOS and participated in a certain sailing journey so could very well have been the after shakes of that specific tour…  

It was a great party with all the customs I was longing for so now I am positive that after all Christmas will arrive this year…J

I leave the non-spoken work to some images of this wonderful Christmas celebration: 

The holy place for the "divine service" :) I love the painting!

Some of the party people...

The happy girls...

The barman and his neighbor are posing for the camera...

The captain and the cameraman... 

Danish snaps and beer - yummy! Notice the goblin holding the snaps - respect;)

Warm pate with bacon beet roots etc.

Meatballs and red cabbage. The girls discussed the size of the meat balls. The boys assured that they actually come in larger versions.

It was all so delicious that cute Kiki did keep a close eye on the remaining parts;) 

Ris a la mande directly imported from Denmark and served in a beach village in Cape Verde.

Even Santa Claus gave us his pleasant visit!!! Maybe I need to stress that we did not play dart - HO HO HO

Quickly the rumor went across the streets - Santa is here. As you see kids were astonished!

The three vikings!

The coming days we will be going on a sailing trip to the neighbor island Boa Vista and in the weekend I am blessed with a Birthday party so asap next week before December 24th I will be back with more sailing part updates!

Enjoy it out there wherever you are – may the Christmas spirit be with you!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

Part 6, Sailing Las Palmas, Spain – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 17^th 2010

Ohh my God - look at the hole in the front sail

The good thing about getting up early for the morning shift is experiencing the end of the night and the beginning of a new day when the darkness slowly surrenders to light. A warm golden light that beautifully takes over the sky. 

The time is 07.35. I got a few hours of sleep before having to leave the cozy sleep to take my part of the navigation while captain gets some deserved rest. Still 353 nautical miles (654 km) to go of the 860 miles we started with. So still a pretty big slice of distance left to consume. We haven’t given up on hoping for what we initially expected for the voyage: calm winds and small rolling waves. The joyride! Please knock on our door – we would greet you with hot food and maybe even a glass of wine.

Waves still rocking Captain SBock around. I guess you see it - or have a look at the lamp;)

The drinking part in general we were very bad at. Naturally in these conditions we didn't have or want any type of alcohol. But I had made it a routine to fill up everybody’s water/juice bottle and it stroke me how limited our consumption actually was. I made a quick count; 21 liters in total in 5 full days of travel. That gives an average of 1,3 liters per day. Even though Sheilah had a slow start with seasickness the first 3 days Gunnar and I was still up night and day apart from the pieces of sleep we got here and there. Not at all enough. You are supposed to drink at least 3 times the amount a day. 

It made me remember an incident some years back when I was responsible for a tour in Brazil/Argentina with a group of 20 tourists which mostly not were in the young age anymore. At a time we were spending 3 days in a small camp in the jungle in the area of Manaus in Amazonas. After a full day excursion visiting Indians and seeing the meeting of the waters we were having a well deserved food buffet with drinks. One of my guests was not feeling hungry and didn’t seem too well. He decided to walk back to his cottage for a rest. I have a lot of respect for these elderly people and was worried. They are mostly made of stuff at a time of the century where you do not wail. Their age taken into consideration they are strong as a bull. So the sign of “weakness” made me alert. If he was getting ill it could have a great affect on the rest of the tour and if it was something serious we were in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country. Bad timing.
While I was walking with him he rejected that I should even bother but I insisted and was trying to figure out what we could do to stabilize his condition and hoping that a rest as he said would be the remedy. Suddenly I discovered that he was not walking straight and he had stopped talking.
Just before he fell to the ground I caught him instinctively without giving it a thought. With a girl on a green field it would probably have been very romantic. But not in this situation. Actually I was terrified. I was not sure if he had decided to die in my arms out in the jungle!!!

My mind went to “code red” – ALARM!!! My mind got ready to provide CPR if his pulse would not be there. To my luck and immense relief his heart was giving out beats and just some seconds later which seemed as several minutes he opened his eyes and was of course very confused. My guests which from distance in the restaurant had seen the incident was now standing around so it must have been a weird way to “wake up” lying in the arms of the guide and heads around you - in the jungle…
It proved that he was dehydrated and natural forest tea with plenty of sugar soon made him smile again so we could continue the tour with no interruption, just another adventure to talk about.   

Being aware of our limited water consumption therefore made me alert and I kept on eye on any symptoms that could relate to it including my own headache which was gone for now.

Sheilah and Gunnar having a "gourmet" can dinner and something to DRINK!!!

We continued our 3 hour shifts with our heavy eyelashes. What was positive was that the waves finally seemed to calm down and was reaching about 3-4 meters in height now. It made it a bit less stressful to navigate and we could start enjoying the stars in the dark night again. Also the sounds of the boat appeared lighter and even though falling asleep was not a subject whenever you found yourself with the potential of 2 hours sleep, it was great not to be rolling around in the cabin so much!

Goodnight!

We all enjoy another sunset for dessert

Stay around for me waking up soon again;)               

Part 5, Sailing Las Palmas, Spain – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 16^th 2010

Cockpit view of the boat - you should feel the heeling to starboard side here..:)

Last night had really been a nightmare with the breaking of the main sail and the beam which had torn itself off place.
It was just one hour of sleep away. Thanks to Gunnar I at least got an hour sleep. He was suppose to wake me up at 06.00 but had shown mercy after the hardships of the night so now it was 07.00 which of course put more pressure on his shoulders and option for rest.

We were suffering from lack of sleep. My body felt heavy and was hurting here and there. My brain was working overtime and showed a whole row of red lamps blinking on the “body-status-dashboard” declaring state of emergency which was probably why I didn’t feel too good.
I took a few deep breaths, got a smile on my face (HEY we were still alive!), went up in the cockpit and pronounced the sailors greeting: “AHOY!”. The captain replied and I could see how tired he also was in the dawn of the day. 

I took over the steering while he started checking our GPS position. The suggested heading was now around 210 degrees to arrive at our target. But pushed by some waves or concentration loss, the boat would quickly turn down to 180 degrees or less. In that position we were much more exposed as she would have more of the port side towards the hungry waves with the big white teeth.
A few times it felt like we were close to being knocked down – rolled over by these giant waves. However no one had eaten us at this stage – they “just” shook us up on their passing and then kept on rolling out in the horizon almost as if they had to hurry up and conquer something else out there… leaving us with a wet and salty cockpit.

The boat did also share all it’s suffering with us. I heard it through all the creaking noises going on like she was telling all sorts of different stories and crying out for help with her voice in ship language.
Apart from the “surround sound weeping” she was also showing her “bleeding” main sail with the hole, which was now growing! The poor lady was injured indeed. A swan with a big white broken wing.

Unfortunately the weather did not show any indications of changes. The waves reaching 6 meters were clearly our main stressing obstacle. How long time could they keep on? When would it peak and get better? And more important, how long could we keep up and handle this unexpected challenge?
 
The situation was frustrating. It had now been going on for several days and the waves seemed even stronger than before. The whole situation combined with lack of sleep, lack of water and food (didn’t feel like), a screaming boat with water in the cockpit and now the broken sail on top of it really wore the whole team spirit down. The current set up didn’t look to prosperous.

 I had caught myself thinking and looking at the yellow bag in the cockpit. It was the emergency bag which was THE THING to remember in the disastrous event of abandoning the ship. It featured different distress signals - equipment to make aware of ourselves for eventual passing ships or rescue service. In addition this not-to-forget-bag had water, food, medicine, sunscreen, etc. - to keep us alive a period of time.

The dinghy attached to the deck would be the first option to jump in and I was trying to recall which were the points where it actual was fastened. Second option was a Danish Viking lifeboat that would release itself automatically in case of the boat going down… The thoughts I kept to myself.

But I was not the only one having these kinds of thoughts. The lady onboard suddenly said: “I think we should call SOS!”. This at once made the yelling of the boat, the rolling of the waves with big teeth and the wind blowing in the broken sail stop. Our own inexplicable private “Bermuda triangle” interruption, made it all stand still - there was silence within the three crewmembers.

Could it be – were we in the necessary level of distress that entitled us send out SOS forcing nearby ships (if any) and whichever rescue team in the area to initiate everything in their power to safe our lives. I guess just being in doubt leaves you with a feeling that you do not need rescue. But on the other hand it would be too late to wait until the water started covering our bodies…

I broke the silence which brought back all the elements. They continued to yell, roll and blow and I had to raise my voice to drown them: “we are under pressure for sure, but we are not in a life threatening situation...”, which is the term when calling SOS.
We had to mobilize spirit again. After all we were still sailing, had food, water and the boat was not taking in serious amounts of water. It was “just” rough. Very rough. But the fact that we discussed it clearly indicated the seriousness of the situation.   

It was now 10.00 hours and the main sail was a wreck. It was not doing us much good. I made a plan with Gunnar. He would start the engine and go with the wind straight in the back to take out force of the broken sail and I would try to pull it down. The mission could be impossible if there still would be power of the wind in the sails or if it was tangled around something up there in the 15 meter high mast. It also involved that I had to crawl up to the mast on deck and at all times keep in balance according to the waves. That was the risk included. Both Sheilah and Gunnar didn’t like it so I never felt any pressure to do it. But we had to do something to gain more control and once I was by the mast I would hook the lifeline around it… Only few seconds before and after really exposed me to the great Neptune.  

I got up there and slowly, small pieces at a time, came down but it didn’t matter. I had the whole day and each pull was a small success. When it was all down I sat down to fasten the sail to the beam. The heeling of the boat made me slide a bit on deck and I could spot the concern in Sheilah’s eyes. A moment later I was back in the cockpit in “security” and was met by applaus from my two team colleagues. It sure felt good but it had been exhausting and I all of a sudden discovered that I was totally sweaty.
 
So in the next step we rolled out the front sail - about 50% of it - turned off the engine and we were sailing properly again with no flapping of a broken sail. It was wonderful and made the spirit instantly climb back to a more comfortable level.

Yeah! Properly sailing again - main sail down and front sail up. Solar panels that supplied all our electricity in the lower part of the image.

But it was nothing in comparison to the record high boost the spirit thermometer experienced half an hour later; out of the blue a group of dolphins decided to pay us a visit, jumping with the boat on starboard side – right next to us! We were all so excited and tried to catch them on our cameras. They must have been sent from heaven. Smiles were back on our faces and SOS was fortunately far away again.

Look at something in the left side of the photo. Sorry, its bloody difficult to catch the lovely dolphins on camera... or maybe am I just to slow on the trigger;)

At 11.00 hours I went down to my cabin. Next shift was just one hour away and even though I this night again got way too little sleep (all together three hours) I was not able to sleep. A headache was starting to build up so I drank some water and tried to relax closing my eyes and taking some deep breaths.
I enjoyed the moment - it felt good. Even with all the sounds of the elements constantly going on I had found a sense of peace.

On my shift from 12.00 – 15.00 the highest waves were probably around 4-5 meters. I wished that they would keep on getting smaller. We rolled out more of the front sail, so we now had approximately 2/3 of it out to carry the boat ahead in the wind (12 m/s). The captain checked our GPS position and we were now exactly half way; 435 nautical miles to go - point of no return!
Well to be honest that point had actually been a long time ago. There was no way we could turn around having head wind, going against the current and the waves and only one sail operational. Anyway why should we turn around – we were on our way to Santa Maria in Cape Verde no matter what!
…or at least almost no matter what and only with permission of King Neptune:)  

 In my restitution hours in the afternoon I tried to rest a bit, drink some more water and had some noodles to fight the headache still showing its face now and then.

By 18.00 hours I was up steering again and the wind was now much harder. Only around sunset everything calmed down but I was fooled. It would later prove to be a pattern. 

Watching the magic sunsets (and sunrises) every day is priceless...

Half an hour after the sunset, soldiers of Neptune were back hunting me again.
At some moments we were accelerating to a fury speed of 6 knots which I thought with just 2/3 of the front sail out was pretty wild. I could feel the strength of the wind in the sail and I started to get a little nervous. Could it keep up with the mighty power of the wind? We somehow were counting on the front sail now the main sail was out of the game.
So when Captain came up at 21.00 hours I was very eager to pull some of the front sail in again to get rid of several square meters and relive it from some of the pressure. We rolled it in and when 1/3 of the sail was left I stopped and flashed my torch towards the sail. I was stunned to a level of speechlessness. What my eyes saw could not be true…

A hole in the sail! Not again. A triangular hole in the lower part of the front sail. I served the news to the Captain with a “as far as I can see”. He reacted by telling the dark night the whole vocabulary of bad Swedish 4-letter words. At this stage they needed to fly out of their imprisonment... Out in the wind who immediately consumed them.  

We were somewhere just to the left of Africa (lower righ)
The prognoses of waves stated max height of 3 meters... we "ran into" twice the size!

Our nightshifts were becoming an unpleasant habit of holes in the sails! We did not need any more challenges but had no choice. The wind pressure on the sail must have been too powerful or pulling our sails in these wind conditions was not meant to be. Either way it was too late to be wise about that. We had to continue and we had enough speed to navigate her. That was the positive element we had to stick to.

Before I found myself in my cabin I had to get up again. That’s at least how I felt it when hearing that miserable sound of the whistle twice again..  I probably got two hours of sleep.
Now I was back on my shift in the cockpit again. It was midnight – and another dark night accompanied by the rough black waves passing by and a half moon which seemed to show the way out in the horizon for these “hunting animals”. It was a scenario I as sailor felt comfort in.  Waves, wind and hole in the sail. Nothing else? Standard procedure then.

…But soon I was hit.

I found myself poisoned by a virus. My eyes had started closing without any orders from headquarters! The virus aimed for overruling and disconnecting the main “keep eyes open” orders in various mad attempts – a true act of terror. Once the eyes mechanism was infiltrated and brought down to a complete shut, the virus tried to seal the closure. This could be fatal. An unexpected closure for a minute could force a total shut down of the whole system!
As soon as I realized the invasion was in progress I became a true restless soul. A moment with no-activity and I would catch my eyes closing. I had to actively fight it so while steering I had to stand, sit, zip water, melt chocolate on the tongue, sing and talk constantly to keep that nasty virus of my eyes. Disgusting shit that bug!

Only remedy is sleep but I did not have that option before 03.00. When my wristwatch showed exactly 02.57 I blew the characteristic two times in the whistle to be released from my duties and what seemed to be an endless fight against the sleep virus. Soon I would not be able to stand it anymore.  But now it was time to finally kill it!

Cabin – bed – dreamland – sleep – here I come; Sleeping is sooooooo wonderful. Almost three hours - GROOVY!!!

I hope you have enjoyed the journey so far…?
Please stay alert for new challenges and pleasures in Part 6. 

Part 4, Sailing Las Palmas – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 15^th 2010

The boats get lifted yet another time by a big wave - this one with just one tooth. 

The sound of the boat in the waves and the rolling in my cabin woke me up after just 2 hours of rest at 08.15. I guess waking up in the middle of a dream makes it easier to remember them: I was given a tour of a brand new sports stadium but all the chairs and tables for the spectators were made of concrete – a regular Flintstone theme. To make it even weirder, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie showed up. I got these three headwords out of it; athletic challenge, fun and glory. I definitely could agree with the challenge in fighting these waves and getting no sleep but the two remaining headwords… Maybe they were to come! Or should I just spice the day up with these remaining ingredients…

Well I did not have too much time to figure it out – I had to finish my breakfast; cornflakes with honey and lukewarm milk. Since we only could charge the batteries during the day with the solar panels installed in the boat, we had to safe power in the night. The fridge was one of the “luxuries” that had to be turned off leaving only lights and water pumps as the power consumers whenever night or cloudy. Both used with caution and respect.
Fresh water was something else that was to be treated as gold. We had three categories: drinking water (purest 24 carat gold) fresh water not drinkable (like a jewelry where only the surface is real gold) and salt water (make it a plastic ring with a yellow color to it, bought in a Chinese store). This “level 3” water was used for everything where water quality was not an issue like dishwashing. Washing yourself or cloth in this water will result in some sticky feeling when drying (Like when drying after a swim in the salty water – a fresh water rinse is great). Body or cloth wash was the job of the not drinkable level 2 water. Anyway washing yourself - spot washing - in these rolling weather conditions was not an easy job. Sitting on the toilet with some level 2 water in a small blue plastic pot (I figured it was new and using it for my first time I really hoped nobody had used it for pissing or worse when I was pouring water in my head) with one hand in the micro wash basin to keep balance in the tiny toilet, left you with just one hand to pour water in your head or wherever washing was needed… I will not come with further details here as you probably already have way too many not comfortable images in your mind. 

The small toilet with the blue pot that became the spot wash item

What I wanted to stress here is that it really makes you wonder. You realize how freaking spoiled we are in our everyday life with what seems to be unlimited resources of water and power apart from the high level of comfort we especially in the western world enjoy – often without even paying attention to it! So please make sure you appreciate it more often (you are a spoiled kid man!;) – These valuable resources are to be enjoyed and used with respect every day. 

In psychological terms all these comforts should be remembered to count in as a big plus in the mind, so if the bus is five minutes late or some clouds are on the sky, life is still good and not “in minus” if you get my drift. All too often we worry about small things.

…

The spot washing made me feel much better – like two hours of sleep right there! And when I from the rest of the crew got confirmed that nobody had used the blue pot at all it just added the value of one more hour of sleepJ

I took over the wheel at 10.30 to 15.00 trying to keep the compass at 240 degrees. According to the GPS we were a little out of the optimal straight line (215) to the island of Sal where Santa Maria is located in the south, so we were trying to compensate for that.
 
The big swells were still very bad and combined with the hard wind it was a mixture that would not give many resting seconds on a shift. It was hard work and the numerous days with limited sleep was wearing the captain and me down. We were the only able to navigate the sailing boat but we could not go on like this. We had to change tactics to keep up with this forceful environment.  Therefore we decided to take two steps. The front sail had to come down (rolled in) which would make us less sensitive to the hard wind and give us better steering in the big waves. Secondly we had to shorten the shifts to three hours, meaning three hours work and three hours restitution. I hated the thought that the sleep now would be cut further up in pieces but on the other hand three hours of wave fighting with our tired mind and bodies was already on the limit.  

The image taken from the saloon is not very clear but gives an idea about the size of the waves rolling in. Much taller than us... 

    

I made some noodle soup which was my first hot meal in four days – it was truly delicious and I caught myself licking the damn noodle cup, like a dog – it tells how needed and good it was:)
Then my time was up – it was already 18.00 hours. A new rendezvous with the big waves. They did not seem to give up. It was like a primitive animal. A beast. I had already been singing on my shifts, now I started talking but no worries. It was not talking to myself. I was talking to Neptune;) At first it was remarks to the King of Sea like: “come on, can’t you do better than this” – trying to break his confidence and stress him out. But after a few enormous strikes of waves in the back I started sweet talking to him instead. Between you and me, I think I even included Neptune in my prayers.

Nature had me in the corner. My arms and knees had started calling up to headquarters with damage reports of pain and serious capacity loss. No wonder; Sitting in the captains “seat” (wooden box) turning the big wooden steer, I felt like a genuine rodeo rider going from side to side and back and forth according to the never ending waves.
Notice that rodeo riders on the wild horses keep up 20 maybe 30 seconds. I was riding completely untamed waves three hours a shift man! It was one hand on the wheel, one to keep yourself inside the boat and the legs balancing your body like suspensions on a car to keep you parallel with the horizon (more or less) while the boat was heeling tremendously over. Again and again.
The trick was to arrange the back of the boat to the coming wave and eventually compensate immediately on the wheel when it was passing – that was also the exhausting part and sometimes you just had to agree to dance with Neptune. I have to state here that it never was tender love song dances… it was always rock and roll you around!

I was truly a happy man when the three hours were gone. The clock reached 21.00 hours and I could finally blow the characteristic two times in the whistle and call up Gunnar.
  
Three hours of rest felt like having a weekend all to yourself. But like them they pass all too fast! I just managed to sleep for two hours before that bloody whistle conquered my “ocean deep” sleep (after all we had four kilometers of water below us). I am sure you know the feeling of waking up thinking: “it’s impossible, time cannot be up already!” and even your eyes are swollen and hurting because they have to open already again. But hey – it’s basically their one and only job, right!
There was no mercy – I blinked with my flash light to acknowledge to the Captain that I was awake and on the way.

This is how the saloon looks like. My cabin is in the background - the very front of the boat.

Stepping up from the protected saloon to the wind blowing in the cockpit was a world of a difference. It made me instantly fresh and alert. While Gunnar was giving his report and stating the missing signs of improvements, he was supported by the wind whistling in the mast.

It was midnight, another round heading 240 and surrounded by shadows that I now was more confident about. But I never had any doubt of the force. It was lifting and throwing this 11 meter and 10 ton heavy boat around to a point that it seemed that we were just a nutshell on the sea.
No, we were not cruising the Atlantic – we were surfing down the ocean! A few of the spraying waves splashed into the cockpit now and then but mostly she kept them waves out and handled the whole situation very well - so far.

At 02.30 a half an hour before my escape to resting my body I heard the main sail flapping. More and more. We were still doing the same course give and take, so it could be the wind had changed course. I checked the wind situation. Nothing was changed there – still wind from north east. I had to lean my body out on the rear end of the boat to get a free sight due to the solar panels on the spray hood’s roof. Something was wrong. The sail seemed to be tangled in the top. Nothing we could do about this now. It was dark, high waves and strong wind. To change the setting of the sail we had to crawl up to the mast. In the new boats everything is handled from the cockpit, but not us. We “wanted” or make it a “had” to do it the old fashion way so in these conditions some hazards was involved in a mast expedition.

Just before it was time to blow the whistle I checked the sail again with my head attached flashlight (keeping one hand for the boat). To my horror I discovered a hole in the top of the main sale! Shit shit shit!!! Not something we needed now. It could have been caused by the radar reflector made of aluminum hanging up at that level however I didn’t really matter now. The main sail was broken – that was the miserable fact.

“Uiiiiiiihh uiiiiiiihh” the whistle on my life jacket pronounced. Minutes later the captain was in the cockpit. Knowing that he just woke up and still probably was half asleep I thought I had to come out really soft with this bad news. The sentence I established sitting in the compass red lit cockpit was: “Gunnar, I have good and bad news. Bad news is that we have got a failure on the main sail. It has a hole… and the good news is that it is easier to steer!”. There is always a positive point – hunt it down and use it. It was the truth. Now we were even less sensitive to the wind and steering down the waves was lighter.
But I felt sorry for him since; he just invested in the boat (new sail could easily cost $5.000,-), we were making less speed, now even further away from the fun ride we all had hoped for from the start and the poor guy just woke up from two hours sleep for Christ sake!

I must say he took the bad news in a very calm way. I only heard one “shit” – just 1/3 of my portion. We had to just keep going and then in daylight we would take a closer look and discuss action according to safety and wave size.

I did not go down to my cabin in a good mood. Uncertainty about what to do now came crawling parallel with sleepiness which at some point was stronger and gained control at 03.30…

Uiiiiiiiihhhhhhh – The sound of the whistle cut right through boat, wind and wave sounds. But that could not be. 2 1/2 hours gone already again? I flicked the light as standard routine for being awake. My eyes were not happy about the situation and for a moment they refused to see clearly. Then the dots on my wristwatch slowly started to appear. It was only 04.30. Ohh no – a new situation must have enrolled in the cockpit. I rushed up.

During a flip of the main sail the sheet where the beam was attached had ripped itself up from the fiber glass and now the beam was dangerously swinging lose on one side of the boat. What kind of nightmare is this? Unfortunately I was not dreaming.
I got my lifeline on and caught some of the remaining robes attached to the beam in order to fix it on the boat again.

When it was done I went down in my cabin again feeling like a soldier coming back from a mission, fighting the enemy down. However I was not certain if the enemy power suddenly would erupt again. I refused to take off my clothes. Just lie down - ready for combat! I was at full alert and became aware of some new sounds in the boat...
Was the mast being overworked now with the main sail being looser and developing pressure where it was not supposed to…? I went up again. I tried to tighten the rob where the beam was fixed, to take some pressure off the mast and then went back to my bunker. Soon the sun would rise and we could look into damages and decide what to do. Hopefully without further damages. I guess I was just afraid of the potential line of damages still awaiting us. Nevertheless now some precious sleep was essential before next battle which could be in 1 day, 1 hour or maybe 1 minute… no time to waste.

1 second later I slept.

I wish I could say the worst part already had been uploaded... Stand clear for Part 5!!!
- Soon on this site… 

Part 3 Sailing Las Palmas – Santa Maria, Cape Verde

Nov. 14^th 2010

The wind is straight from our back here, having the main sale to port side and the front sail to starboard side. With this sail position  you got to keep "your tongue right in the middle of your mouth!;) 

Waking up at 08.45 gave me 3 hours of sleep which together with 2 hours I had earlier in the evening summed up to the total of 5 hours. You can feel by opening the eyes that they have not got the rest they were longing for. But for a few days you can keep up concentration and mood with less sleep. Over a longer period it definitely will affect you in a negative and non pleasant way. We were looking forward to a more calm weather and most of all smaller waves which could extend our hours shift and thereby also the hours to rest. According to wind and waves this morning it certainly looked like that. It was lovely cruising weather and after some sandwiches I took over the command at 10.30. Skipper was after the ship disturbance last night naturally rather sleepy so I didn’t see him until the agreed coffee time at 15.00 hours. At that time the coffee/cappuccino ceremony always starts with some sweets if available. Today even Sheilah got words on her lips, so clearly more than 2 days on the sea which also now was calmer resulted in the improvements.

In the evening I had some of the lovely rye bread again with lever pate – still no one else seemed to be really hungry which surprised me cause quite amazing how good simple food can taste in these conditions in addition to the 24 hours sea and fresh air. Maybe another beautiful sunset made it kind of unforgettable:

Gunnar talked me into having a rest at 20.30 and I didn’t wake up until midnight 3 1/2 hours later when the almighty whistle reached my ears and beamed me from sweet cozy planet dream to rough bumpy planet earth with a blink of an eye.  
The weather situation had changed. Neptune – King of Seas – was not in a good mood and was showing his furious teeth in the big waves that now were reaching 3-5 meters in altitude and bumped into Sheilah CV that made some major rolling… one hand for you and one for the ship was fundamental if you didn’t want to hurt yourself or get thrown out.

 The wind had increased to 15-20 m/s which is categorized as hard wind. In these conditions I extended my life west with a life line which in the event of me going overboard would secure my attachment to her.
It must be every sailor’s nightmare to come up to an empty cockpit after hours of sleep. If your partner fell overboard that poor person can be many miles away – out of sight, drifting and possibly gone forever… Not acceptable! Security measurements like being hooked to a life line is crucial.
 
I must admit that I in the beginning of the journey not even had a life west on. It’s not regulation but of course advisable for your own security. An incident with the beam made me carry life west all possible times. As I was standing on the starboard side of the ship the beam suddenly rolled over to my side. It was a non controlled shift of side which having the wind in from the rear is at risk. I just remembered that I saw the beam coming towards my forehead and the only instinctive reaction I apparently had time to handle was closing my eyes… The next thing I remembered was the BANG! I could open my eyes again and breath out. It had stopped just some 30 cm from my head. Gunnar had due to the risk with this wind and waves tightened the beam up with extra robes. If this had not been done I most probably would not have been able to pass this sailing experience to you... With the beam landing on my forehead, I would have been knocked out in the “pool”… unconscious.
The wind in the sails has an unbelievable power. You just got to watch out especially when you feel safe. Mother Nature is the master at all times and you will have to respect her. So from that moment I wore a life west whenever in the cockpit or on deck.    
  

This night was different than the first two nights. This was really bringing the gear, the sails and the navigators to the test. And in the dark everything seems worse. Every time I had the energy to it, I watched my back to try and prepare for the next big swell. A few times this got me really frightened! These black shadows were coming towards me like big monsters with a height that way passed the boat and my height together and I thought a few times – boy, its over – you did good my friend, but know it’s time to get wet – really wet. I guess also the dark side of you anticipated that at some point a mega wave would strike and take you down (isn’t there a movie about this?;)
It never came. The Captain could later calm my mega wave scared part of the brain that the giant wave does not exist. Wind, temperature and current physics does not allow one wave to be so much bigger than average under normal conditions not talking about tsunamis or hurricanes of course. A true relief.

Anyway this shift was a full time job round the hour. The heading was 210 but these big waves could easily change your compass course by 30 degrees. This would bring you in one of the following situation:

1.       Going to the starboard side the beam risked flipping uncontrolled to the other side since the sail then would be fed by wind from the other side of the rear end. Not an option if avoidable.

2.       Going to the port side the boat would get the wind more directly on the side of the sails which will make the wind much stronger in the sails and the speed would pick up considerably. The trouble was that it was not the correct course and it was hard to steer and change course once you reached this “sidewind”.

Neither option would really make you a happy sailor here. The situation was frustrating and you had to keep concentration forcing contra steering with every wave. Taking a zip of water or glimpse of the stars would jeopardize the control and if you didn’t gain it till next wave you could be so much lost. In the beginning I was very impressed by the major power the waves possessed and compared the wild ride on the wave with a free ride in an amusement park! Soon these thoughts drowned. After a few hours of “playing” and the waves just seemed bigger and more powerful with some actually “jumping” into the cockpit and you could hear the boat, the wood in the saloon, the mast, the sails was at full pace – reaching top speed of the sailboat of probably 8 knots (15 km/h). It was a tough fight to keep control so the remaining hours of the shift was not funny.

On top of this wild sailing condition a light way back behind me had caught my attention. One hour later it was still same place and size. I came to the conclusion that it was a star but decided however to connect it to other stars in the area just to be 110% sure. Half an hour later it had moved away from the other stars pointed out! The “star” proved to be a ship. The next I see is the red port light and since it was coming from my port side he was moving in our direction… and it kept coming closer. I was shifting between handling waves and keeping an eye on the movements of that vessel. Could it be following us – was it pirates? There had been reports about pirates on this side of Africa’s coast. 

This might "enlighten" you as to how the light is placed on a ship to determine directions at night

Being almost behind me it still had the side with the red light towards me and I knew the second I would see both red and green light (steering direct at us) would be the second I would blow the whistle to wake up Gunnar to alert him of the situation. Since it seemed that the vessel came from north east going south west I decided to change course to south east just to see the reaction. This also gave me the boost of the wind from the side and I felt that we almost were flying; nobody messes with me! Not even the pirate ship seemed to care of my drastic tactics it just kept going steady on the course and soon it passed on my starboard side with the engine and outline proving it was just another cargo ship.

I had enough action for this night and was relieved when I finally could blow the whistle and wake up Gunnar for his turn.

I stayed up a bit in the cockpit afterwards, just to calm down and making sure we didn’t need to take some of the sails down. My wrist watch indicated that the time was 06.00 and surely rest was needed. I hardly remember that I laid my head on the pillow…

Sucking up a new sunset before sleeping for a couple of hours and a new night shift

Stay tuned for the next episode very soon!