That's how it looks sailing in Atlantic with winds and big seas. WaveS come...lift up the stern ...and than with a full power- surfing all way down. And than another...and another..and than some crazy wave which comes from who knows where hits the boat and big amount of water comes on you. After so many calm days before...than comfortable 15 knots for other few days..finally we got lots of wind.
It started blowing 20- 25 knots and like that till now. And it would be super nice sailing if not those big waves. They make all much more complicated. Reading, sleeping, cooking and etc..But the biggest problem is steering. Few days ago a big wave crashed on stern of the boat and broke our wind wane wooden plate. It happened at night so it was quite not nice to start uninstalling broken plate in the dark and try to fix it. So it was left for the next day . With the day light all looks better. Luckily we had another plate on board so with little effort Egoi managed to install it there. My father gave it for emergency and so we gave it use. But not for a long time. Huge sea and strange broken waves made steering by wind vane impossible, so finally we decided to stop fighting of trying to make it steer and started steering boat by ourselves. . If it happened in beginning of the trip probably we would fight more and would manage it work properly finally , but now we were tired of constantly trying to put in on course. But each of us has two hands no? Needs to shorten hours of watch keeping -3 hours each with 6 hours of rest and lets steer. For 3 days we can do it:)
All the rest is going very good. We have plenty of water left and diesel we almost didn't touch. Fruits and vegetable except onions, garlic and potatoes are finishing..but there are still cold beer in the fridge and liters and liters of wine left. We do not fish anymore because after the past Mahi Mahi which we had for lunch for 3 days no one of us miss it. For now we prefer rice, pasta or some beans instead. Actually when its so hot food is nots priority anymore..
Days here on water became hotter and hotter. Inside the boat even more. Now we sail with all hatches closed, so you can imagine... A real sauna! Humidity almost 100 precent and a heat:) Outside little bit better , but even at nights we can stay in swimming clothes without problem. But we love it. Somehow this is what we were looking for- a real tropic weather. With sun , heat and rain. After so much sand and dry wind in Canary island and Cape Verde its such a pleasure to get rain finally!
Hope the next post will be already from Suriname. After fresh water shower and quiet long sleep in calm waters...
p.s. right after writing this text we one more time managed our wind vane to steer. Seems that we discovered our mistake and learned how to adjust it now. So again hands free !:)