However, we first had another series of watches to complete and to solve the source of various lights on the horizon, the first occurring at the change of watch last night when Roy spotted a light on the horizon; was it a yacht, a star or, indeed, a planet, eventually concluding it was a star low on the horizon, given the very dark night.
The next light appeared on the horizon around 0100, after Elaine and Justine had enjoyed some stargazing again, leading Justine to believe a cruise ship had appeared out of nowhere, only to realise it was, in fact, the rising moon again and a stunning one at that. It literally looked more like the sun with its red tint. Simply beautiful!
These distractions were greatly appreciated, though, given the extremely frustrating conditions we found ourselves in from a weather perspective. With the very light winds increasing periodically, Elaine tried, in vane, to switch the engine off. However, during Roy and Paul’s watch, the wind direction and speed became a little bit more favourable to do so, making for a peaceful sail, albeit at a snails pace. This continued for the first hour of Elaine and Justine’s early morning watch, before the wind started to back and veer through 50 degrees and the speed increased and dropped repeatedly from 13 Kts to 4 Kts respectively, never mind the horrible side swell that continued to plague us. As a result, Paw Paw rocked from side to side, sails flogged all over the place and we were getting nowhere.
With that, Elaine furled the headsail, sheeted in the mainsail, put Paw Paw on a broad reach to keep as much as possible of the very little wind we had in the mainsail and switched the engine back on to give us a more consistent speed. We were, however, now heading towards the US coast, but it had to suffice until daybreak.
When Roy surfaced around 0800, him and Elaine unfurled the headsail, taking it over to the port side and placing it on the port barberhauler, sheeted out the mainsail again and set a COG (Course Over Ground) in the general direction of west rather than northwest, then enjoyed a bacon buttie for breakfast, using the remainder of the fresh bread Roy had baked yesterday; it was Sunday after all! Justine settled for an egg sandwich, while Paul had to be woken to enjoy his bacon and egg sandwich, before Elaine trundled off to bed after everyone had been fed and watered.
While Elaine and Justine were off watch, the wind direction steadied out of the east-northeast and increased slightly in strength, allowing Roy and Paul to set Paw Paw back on a run and putting us back in the right direction, albeit still at a painful crawl.
During this time, however, the ship’s clock was set back too by two hours, completely confusing Elaine, given that she’d gone to sleep at around 0910 then woke to see her watch indicating 0915. Thinking that her watch had given up the ghost, she turned over and went straight back to sleep, surfacing at her usual 1200 to do her afternoon watch. There was just one small problem; it was, in fact, 1400 in real terms!
By this stage, poor Roy was exhausted and really needed his sleep, but had decided to rather leave Elaine to sleep, given that the past few days were proving to be more of a struggle for her, primarily due to problems trying to sleep in her off time; a struggle everyone was having at varying degrees due to the terrible swell rocking Paw Paw around combined with the noise of an engine, never mind all the clanging of the rigging. The flaky conditions had become a nightly occurrence, now adding to frustration levels at our very slow progress. Letting her sleep, however, was a quip pro quo arrangement, given that Elaine sits on watch every afternoon, while everyone else sleeps or tries too at least, or simply has downtime, an arrangement that suits her just fine because it gives her some quiet time and the time to tidy up and clean the common areas of the saloon and galley everyday.
On the upside, by 1300, thankfully, the winds had picked up again to around 13-15 Kts, increasing our SOG (Speed Over Ground) to 5.5 Kts from the painful 4-4.5 Kts overnight. Additionally by 1530 we had 996NM to go. That meant by tomorrow, we’d reach the 2/3-way mark; we had reason for a double celebration in reaching two more significant milestones. Regardless, this was stacking up to be our slowest passage of this circumnavigation!
Tonight, at the end of Roy and Paul’s first watch, Elaine was woken to the news that we had to drop the mainsail after Paw Paw had started to surf down some rather large waves. With that the usual procedure ensued, but, of course, we picked the darkest night of all; no moon and no stars due to an overcast sky.
Back on track with the mainsail secured, we continued westward on our trusty headsail alone enjoying a SOG of around 5 Kts without an engine; onwards we go!
