Forget that. We are living sailings extremes.
Windy running and reaching for a week with an incessant fire hose to the face. On deck was quickly replaced by finesse sailing with the Mast Head Genoa and a lot of heat. Below was aired out finally and the moisture was all but eliminated. I will tell you that the last 24 hours of the windy reaching was pretty bad down below. Fact was that we had to have all the hatches and vents shut because so much water was coming over the deck. Problem was, outside il mostro, the sea temp was about 29c and the air temp was not far from that as well. Foul weather gear was miserable to put on but completely necessary and below was a sauna. Yuck! Throw in 11 guys without showers for 10 or so days and you get my drift.
We went from quite windy and exhilarating sailing to our second stint with the Doldrums. For il mostro we were on top of the world as we kept it one piece in the windy stuff and entering the Doldrums we had moved up to third and could see second place E3 about 3 miles away. Then came the first of many, many bad clouds and torrential rain squalls with light, circling breeze in them. We watched E3 simply sail away. Later that day we saw a position report that the Dragon had simply sailed right by us about 4 miles away and finally on the other side of us Delta Lloyd has sailed by as well. Unreal. I was told this Doldrums place could be a killer but I had no idea it could be this bad, and believe me, we aren't trying to sail in the bad clouds. Just the opposite! We were in a virtual pin ball machine of bad clouds.
When we thought we had a good three hour run the others did better. When we thought we had a bad three hour run (drifting and slating) we were right. We took one to the chin and its now time to get back off the mat and start swinging again.
The weather reports at this point give us days of light air to go to Cochin. I know our shore crew, who want to get into fixing the boat, are not going to be please to hear this. Looking at the GPS last night during one of our particularly bad times we noticed that the estimated time of arrival to Cochin- using the speed the boat was going at the time- was Christmas day! Yikes.
But, all aboard remain up beat. Although we have had a tough Doldrums crossing, so far we all know that things can change in a heartbeat. We are counting on it and all on deck are completely in sync with trying to gain every inch possible.
Not too much else exciting to report. A Happy Thanksgiving to all back in the States. It will be one of the first times that I can remember not being with my entire family on this day- so hello to all and there should be quite a bit more Turkey available for you today compared to other years.
Kenny
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