Half the fleet are gathering at the start line and all are using engine. Not really a sailing rally but what to do when there is no wind and then when it comes it is straight in our nose.
After a few hours we are getting in to a very current area. First we have it with us and then against us and then chaos. The current is all over and the sea looks like it is boiling. We are motoring which normally is a speed of 6-7 knots know we are doing 0.9-1.5. On top of that the gps on the plotter has gone bananas… Good that it is daytime and we can see land on both sides so we know where we are going. In the middle of this chaos there was some calm areas where we saw fins that we think was shark that was eating and also saw some bigger dolphins.
Well out of that chaos we hoist our mainsail and then we hear a klonk on the deck. We found some hard plastic things that are supposed to be on the top of the mast… during the day we found some more. New spare part is ordered and we will get it in Mauritius. This means that we probably can’t use our mainsail over the Indian ocean. Let’s see, we will get one crew from an other boat going up to the mast to have a look. Very happy for that. I am a bit frightened of heights. The next breaking was the hook on our little boom that holds the boom onto the mast.
This 620 Nm has continued being challenging with not much wind, current with and against and waves that are rolling the boat. This rolling ended up with water again in the kitchen. Time to fix new sealing strip around the window . The Blue water runner came up which took us an hour with all the booms and lines to realise that the wind dropped. We keept it up so we could use it an other time which we did but the waves made it hard to keep the wind in the sail.
One of the days we hade really nice current. It gave us between 1.5-2 kn extra speed. During this four days we have sailed maybe one third.
On Tuesday morning when we were sailing we saw a huge amount of dolphins coming towards us. They stayed and played around the bow for 10 minutes. They always give me a big smile.
Every morning and evening we have roll calls over the SSB where we tell each other how the night and day been. Rest of the time we take turns to sleep and have watch. Breakfast and dinner we have together lunch sometimes. I am knitting and listening to books , Edgar sits and thinks a lot or do a sudoko. This leg we have also taken a lot of showers.. it has been so hot not complaining but being on deck where there is some wind but full sun we are sweeting as soon as we work with the sails. Comparing with sailing back home in Sweden with full gear on I rather do this. We did have one rain shower for two minutes in the night. We did se it coming on the radar and avoided the worst part.
We can see land, it’s only 22 Nm left until we are in a buoy. To be on the buoy before the sun is down we turn on the engine. We pass the finish line at 18.44 Lombok time. Lots of motoring hours so we will need around 400l diesel. That will be tomorrows work tonight we are just happy to lay on a buoy and to get a hole night sleep in our own bed and not on the sofa in the salon.
Hugs Eva
Sailing with Saphir 