Lyn's Log, 27th December 2005
Atlantic Crossing, Part 1

Atlantic Ocean.
N6º08', W24º58'
5,633 miles.

Welcome to 2006 (well nearly – 27th December) and I’ll start with the subject which seems to dominate passage making, the weather.

We left Praia on the Wednesday afternoon after a strong offshore wind blasted us the previous afternoon and night sticking a fine brown sand over the entire yacht. It was a good start, covering 120 miles in the first 24 hours not too uncomfortably with the wind always from the northeast and us heading slightly west of south, but it was consistently cloudy. After 3 days, the night before Christmas, we had our first night of sheet lightening and thunder and some rain. The balloons I had just put outside all burst. But as dawn broke the sky cleared giving us a beautiful Christmas day. As night came on again (we have 12 hour days and nights here) a particularly black cloud appeared and was sending out lightening. How ever Andrew tried to avoid being under it, it wasn’t long before there was thunder and bolt lightening shooting straight down from the clouds to the sea all around us. As the previous night, the wind almost died away. We unplugged all the aerial cables and drifted, hoping that we would not get hit with the lightening. Andrew wanted us to stay inside away from anything metal, apart from taking a look out every 20 minutes. The next day was good sailing under normal cloudy skies. There was a lull long enough in the morning for us to have a swim and inspect the rudder. There is play in the rudder which causes it to make a knocking, but everything appeared alright. But in the early hours the wind increased to such a force that we had to put three reefs in the main sail and the rain lashed down. Even with only that amount of sail we were still making 6 knots. Eventually it slowly decreased and by dawn I had the full main up again. Such strong winds are not meant to happen in this area. What will we get in future nights, fog?

Much of our off-watch periods are spent trying to catch up on the sleep missed at night. Christmas day was very pleasant. We opened the few presents we gave each other in the morning and I dressed for the occasion in a two-piece swimsuit and my new crystal jewellery. We listened to the Christmas pop songs on tape and took photos of us under the tinsel and fairy lights. I slung the hammock from the baby-stay to shroud so that I could lie just above the side deck and not fall overboard, listening to the water rushing by. In the afternoon I played lots of carols and other Christmas songs on my clarinet, with Andrew trying to sing ‘Rudolph’ to ‘White Christmas’! Boxing Day we put the inflatable dinghy in the water and had a swim and a shampoo. The water was warmer than most swimming pools and was an incredibly clear blue. Other days, under the clouds, we have made a few minor repairs, including putting a patch on Andrew’s rotting trousers which were new when we left England. We have made mug/glass holders from the bottoms of plastic bottles velcroed onto the ends of the table and beside the cockpit. I made a Christmas cake and bread. And sometimes we have fished. Two days out I caught a small tuna fish which, with the addition of a small tin of seafood, an onion, a tin of mixed vegetables and vermicelli, made an excellent meal. I have never tasted fresh tuna like it.

We had one ship come sailing by on Christmas day in the afternoon, but several in the nights, often coming closer than a mile and keeping us anxious, sometimes requiring the use of the radar to check on their course.

We have opened the second of the ten bags of 5-days’ supply of tinned food, but for Christmas day we had fresh-baked rolls with white crabmeat in seafood sauce for lunch, some small figs from the Canary Islands, and in the evening we opened a chilled bottle of champagne and had dinner. This was 3 duck legs from a tin with some of the fat and juices, heated in a casserole with slices of orange, served with potatoes and tinned artichoke hearts. Dessert was a lovely Christmas pudding given to us by our friends Denbigh and Bon, with rum sauce. (The second half was eaten on Boxing Day).

Today the wind has gone round to the South and we enter the Doldrums. It is 376 miles to our waypoint on the equator.