Wednesday morning I cleaned out my cabin, packed my gear and said goodbye to the boat. I walked back up to the sailing school arriving at 0900, “Come on in, sit down, here is the exam paper, you have 2 hours” the Examiner said to me cheerfully. “Wow” I thought, this is the first hint […]
Month: November 2017
Holed up in port, or out at sea? I sure know where I’d rather be.
A crazy few days occurred in Antigua. Friday started with a bit of a rum coma and turned in to a slow day. Speedophobia was setting in, so keeping my eyes closed most of the day seemed a good option. I’d make contact with an Antigua based friend who I had sailed a race with […]
Day 24. Dolphins at dawn…. Land Ho
My day starts at 0200, I come on deck to find the wind has dropped, we turn the motor on. It had been raining so it was too wet to sit out on deck and enjoy what is hopefully the last night of stars. Skipper is still flapping that we haven’t enough fuel to get […]
Day 23. Stars, showers, speed!
I’m on watch at 0600 and the clouds broke sufficiently for me to get a fix from the stars this morning, much to my relief and the fix looks good on paper. Within an hour the sky had darkened and the rain had come in – really ridiculously heavy rain, no chance of a sun […]
Day 22. The Stars have their own reflections on the ocean
The 0200 – 0600 watch was a bit of treat really, flat calm and we are quietly motoring through the glassy ocean. The lightning had stayed away and the view out here is like nothing I have ever seen before. There is no Moon and the Atlantic Ocean is so still that the brightest of the […]
Day 21. Venus and Jupiter change places, the icing is on the cake
Today started at 0530, I plotted a quick EP to work out my LHA and GHA of Aries (me on the ocean compared to the Sheep on the dish) so I can go on deck and take a dawn star sight.
Day 20. Swallows, swells and still no wind
The clouds have cleared and the sun is shining, so today I am back navigating by the Sun and I have a fix which puts me back within 5 miles of GPS. Phew! There is a whopping 5 knots of breeze, so we have been motor sailing most of the night and all day (and […]
The Great Conga in the Sky
It has taken me a fortnight to get to grips with sun run sun, Moon and planet sights. I still have around 800 miles of the trip left to fathom star sights. I’ve been shying away from this somewhat as the pro-forma given in Mr Cunliffe’s book is basically a page containing seven columns of […]
Day 19. Sleeping Beauty meets angry bull
Bed at 0600, it is cloudy and rainy outside so I don’t hold out much hope for sun sights today. I get up at 0900 just to see if the sun was going to appear, but no, so back to sleep until 1100. The Atlantic looks like the Irish Sea today, cloudy and grey, I feel […]
Day 18. Mainsail, masthead, microwave meals
All the stars are out and then some! There is a light haze in the sky which makes the stars look even bigger and closer than they are. I counted 12 shooting stars in half and hour tonight! On average if I’ve seen 10 per watch I’ve seen over 300 now, that is more shooting […]