Saturday 30th, Sunday 1st and Monday 2nd November 2013
26 10’S 155 12’E
9am
132nm to go
Day 4, 5 and 6
Well am putting these all into one post, why? Well the last 3 days have been a sheer nightmare, today is the first time I have been able to type, and only just I have myself wedged into a large cushion and every few minutes I have a death grip on the side of the cockpit.
It all went pear shape around 12pm Friday the wind started to pick up The Captain jumps up and heads us into the wind to stop us healing over too far.
This last for a few minutes then nothing is helping, we are being faced with a full on gale, with waves 15 feet and over, wind gusting over 45 knots pouring rain and one ugly ugly ocean.
After an hour or so we finally managed to get the sails in this helps some but I tell you it was not easy getting them in, with rope burns on my hand from it being ripped out of it to The Captain having to go out in it to untangle a rope.
Now from previous experience these types of storms usually last 30min Max, but not this guy we are onto almost 3 full days of this, it’s shocking although I think the wind has died down some, the waves and ocean have not.
The wind is so strong that the Aut (Auto pilot) has a hard time coping and switches off all the time, which in turn throws us way off course.
I have never experience winds like this in my life, it is blowing us all over the place not to mention blowing us more on our side than upright, actually I can’t even remember the last time we were upright.
We have the engine running flat out to try and have some control and you know it’s bad when you hear the engine miss a beat and know we have been pushed so far over that the propeller is out of the water.
Than the waves these mamas are huge towering over the boat, there is nothing more unnerving than seeing a wall of water racing towards you and knowing all you can do is pray and hold on hoping against all hope that this one is not the one that is going to knock us right over and they are constant they never let up they just keep pounding into us.
We have had so many come crashing down right on top of us that you can see nothing but water, with the result that everything is wet inside and out. We have had rivers of water coming in downstairs, how it’s getting in has got us beat, but I can tell you it looks like the aftermath of a flood down there.
We had one massive wave dump on us that it actually lifted the hatch above the galley as it was not secured down enough and just dumped half the ocean in there.
All the lockers are full of water all the cushions are wet and everything that has dried out some is covered in a layer of salt.
Then we get to the ocean being so rough as a result we can hardly move around at all as you have to have a death grip on something, to go downstairs is almost a death sentence and we both come back into the cockpit sporting new bruises.
The wave action has also sent everything all over the place from pots and pans to plates and cups to empting out lockers, with a lot of breakages to lifting and throwing a heavy plastic crate full of large water bottles, That I can hardly move as it’s so heavy, this was sitting on the side cushion next to the table and was picked up and thrown over the table and is now upside down on the back cushion behind the table.
There is not one thing that is not untouched by this shocking seas, My good old trusty laptop was up here in the cockpit it got thrown down the stairs and crashed into three pieces on the floor below, it took almost 12 hours before we could go down and pick it up and we put it back together and it’s still working, man that’s one tough computer.
Our new computer has not fared so well, we were so worried that it would come to the same fate that we tied a cord to it and anchored it up here only to have such a bad jolt that it broke two keys on the keyboard, it’s still working but only just, this is one of our main nav systems as well, so it was a shocking moment when we thought we had lost it, the two portable inverters that we use to charge the laptops have stopped working when water got into the sockets that they plug into and the main chart plotter keeps turning itself off and on.
The good news we have about a day and a bit and we will be in Brisbane with any luck, we sure could use some at the moment.
And we sit we hold on, I cry, I go from being utterly terrified to just numb, we are both at breaking point, we try and catch a few hours sleep here and there on wet mattress’s and just hope that it will all calm down soon.
This is the worst crossing ever and has shaken me so much, I’m not so sure this sailing life is for me anymore. I know I will feel better once things settle down but at the moment, I would love to get off this boat and never set foot back on another one again.
Well tomorrow is another day.