A day at Sea - to the Canaries
The strong wind conditions and waves continued until the early hours and then began to die so the engine went on with just the genoa (foresail), but the waves did not abate.
In bed it is difficult to sleep as you roll around and are prevented by what we call lee cloths from falling out of bed (cloth attached to the bed which comes up with straps to the ceiling. Time passes and before long you are woken by the watch who wants to get off, so you get up to take over and are woken by a cup of teas/coffee and of course when they are available a chocolate brownie is a real treat.
Each watch hands over to the other describing the conditions, wind traffic etc and sail plan. However, on our route there were no other boats although we could see tankers on the chart plotter some 100 miles way. The off going watch disappears down below taking off their life jackets and crawling into a rocky bed like the one you have got out of. The new watch settles down and that is their task for the next 3-4 hours. It is an important task as we are all relying on each other to sail/manage the boat and to ensure we do not hit anything. Every hour we log our position (latitude and longitude) in the logbook noting things like distance travelled, wind strength and direction and barometer. We also note things we see/feel or things worthy of note.
At night you cannot see anything but can hear the roar of the sea and waves and every now and then a large one hits the boat with a slam and you hear the splash of the water on deck or sometimes coming over the doghouse into the cockpit. Stormbird has a deep centre cockpit which provides a lot of comfort and you feel safe without being complacent. We have navigation lights we put on and look out for other navigation lights as often fisherman do not have AIS (that shows up on our chart plotter) or they deliberately turn off their AIS so that their rivals cannot see where they are fishing. Watches therefore have to be alert and with 2 on each watch you have company to prevent each other going to sleep.
When I came on watch at 5.00am the wind had started to return so we put out more sail and turned off the engine. There were not many stars as there was a lot of cloud. The wind started to really increase and from 8-11 kts an started to creep up into the 20’s. It then increased up to 27 kts (force 7) and at its peak gusts of 33 (force 8) kts. Stormbird took this well, but we had to adjust the sail plan to limit heal and to prevent the boat being under too much stain. We continued to keep the speed up whilst adjusting our sails. Stormbird was coping easily and frequently riding over the waves, but some were too big (3 plus metres) which sometimes caught us on the side. We were coping well and eating up the miles and hoped it would continue. The strength of the wind was not on our weather forecasts.
The wind continued in its strong format until about 2.00pm when it started to drop and become somewhat variable. This was predicted and so we knew now we would have to motor the rest of the way which was about 60 nm until our waypoint. The problem with this is that it takes a while for the swell to subside after the wind has dropped. The sails often help balance the boat and without them you feel the swell more. We were therefore rolling albeit motoring at reasonable speed.
I changed the courtesy flag from Madeira to Canaries. When you go to a different country it is etiquette that you fly their flag and surprisingly both Madeira and the Canaries have their own flag.
When you are in the last stretch it always seems to take ages. The miles crept away but the rolling did not abate and the crockery and cups were like an orchestra (although not harmonic) donw below clanking away on each roll. Keith (Commodore) was baking a loaf and Peter was to make a spag bol supper. How they managed in the galley swinging from side to side was impressive. Of course, in the middle of this the gas cylinder had to be changed so that meant emptying the starboard lazarette and changing over the cylinder.
The resulting bread and supper were delicious and so we could eat properly we headed into the waves rather than sideways. The sun went down and we were navigating on instruments There were no lights on La Graciosa, so we crept up to our waypoint and the radar told us where the land was. The issue we found was that there were some small blips ahead of us and assumed these were small fishing boats who did not have AIS. We could see some lights on Lanzarote and there was little moonlight due to the clouds.
The bay we wanted to anchor in is relatively small and has a reef on the east side and some rocks. It also has a headland we needed to avoid. We reached the first waypoint and then headed to our second which should lead us nicely into the bay. Peter was positioned on the front with a torch to spot anything and in the dark we could see how misty it was and a little damp. As we came round to our bay we could see a number of anchor lights of other boats so we crept forward and hoped there would be some room for us. The boats appeared out of the mist and Peter shone the torch around. We decided on a spot on the outside which should give us plenty of room, so we dropped the anchor and set it at 11.33pm. We had arrived and had sailed 273nm since Madeira.
It was good to be here safe and sound and we had a celebratory beer. We looked forward to exploring this remote and beautiful bay in the morning. We went to bed without the boat rolling and the crockery and china orchestra had finally finished their finale. We would sleep well.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions – do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com