Eventful last couple of days.
Yesterday, we sailed right into a fairly lively region of low pressure.
Peak gusts of 75 knots, lots into the 50's, plenty of water over the deck.
It came up quickly in the morning and lasted most of the day, another
example of the weather forecasts being not too accurate. I was on mother
duty, so I stayed dry but got to cook and wash up in some inconvenient
conditions. It pretty much settled down by the time I came back on for 2am
watch, though it was still a fair amount of work.
Previous day's highlight was dolphins, lots of them. It started when I
noticed lots of sea birds all around, and I said there must be something
going on below the surface to be drawing them. (I remember this from a
David Attenborough series. Blue Planet?) Soon, we saw fish jumping out of
the water, then dolphins jumping. Pretty soon, there was a fair group of
them around, fifty, maybe more. But then the real fun started. Off in the
distance, we saw a lot more splashing and heard a sound like a waterfall,
slowly getting louder. A huge number of dolphins were coming towards us,
leaping out of the water as they came, across a front hundreds of yards
wide and maybe fifty yards deep. Hundreds of them easily. I guessed a
thousand, though that was the highest guess. In a minute, they had
surrounded our boat. Shortly after, they were gone. Only negative, I
thought I had pressed record on my camera, but I hadn't. I got the very end
of them heading off, but I'll just have to rely on memory.
Another highlight of the past few days was sailing in close proximity to a
bunch of other boats. We were within sight of four, part of the lead group.
We were even within about 100 yards of Derry at one point. It's amazing
after this much racing to be so close, and it's great to be in the lead
group. We did separate a bit as the weather picked up. We're still pretty
tightly bunched, but it's not as personal.
One lowlight was me snapping at some crewmates (and the skipper) over food.
Or maybe the real lowlight was their making it necessary for me to snap,
depending on where you want to place the blame. Food is a bit tight on
these boats, and it's tighter on this race than in the past. I think this
is because we've gone from twelve crew (six women) to fourteen (three
women), but we still cook, e.g., 1.5 kg of pasta as standard. Anyway, two
days ago, Tom had cooked a really nice noodle stir fry. I was the last to
get served, so I was still only half done when seconds came on offer.
Pretty much everyone leapt forward like pigs at a trough. Several them
clamoured for bigger seconds when I (and one other) hadn't had any yet.
Some creative swearing ensued. I got my seconds.
Which reminds me of a time back on Race 7 when someone said something about
growing up in a big family teaching you how to be aggressive about getting
food. I answered that I grew up in a family where we put enough food on the
table that we didn't have to act like animals to have a meal. Touche.
One other lowlight. My bunk has developed a leak, or maybe a condensation
drip, right over my face.
3730 nm to go.
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