Rolling along to Cape Verde Jan12-15, 09

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

We upped anchor and motored out of the anchorage of Dakar at 2:45pm Jan 12. We were sailing under
topsails, main topmast staysail, spanker, fore topmast staysail and inner and outer jibs by 3:00pm. The
fastest transition from engine to sail yet!

The wind had shifted a bit to the East and consequently it was filled with reddish dust from the Sahara. It
was so thick it was like fog making visibity pretty poor.

I picked up a stomach bug in St Louis so I wasn’t feeling very good and hit my bunk for a snooze as soon
as I could. This turned out to be bad idea, when I woke up 4 hours later we were out in the steady
tradewinds close hauled on the starboard tack and really rolling in the big swell. As a result I got seasick
and spent the next day being pretty miserable from both ends! Blah.

The sailing is fantastic however. The sky out here is only a little hazy mostly bright blue and the seas are a
beautiful dark blue with very bright white foam caps. The swells are easily 10′ or more in height and
rolling down wind this means we are sailing across them at an angle which makes for a roller coaster like
ride!

There are lots of flying fish here. I didn’t used to think that they flew, more glided like a flying squirrel.

They actually do fly for a lot farther and under a fair amount of control than I thought. I watched one go
for several wavelengths up over a wave crest and down the trough! Pretty cool to see. So far we haven’t
had any land on board much to Chibley’s disgust (apparently she likes them rawwwww and wwwiiiiggling
precious).

Steering this ship is fascinating. Different people have different styles I’ve noticed. Some people move the
wheel a lot back and forth, essentially “hunting the course”, others tend to make small adjustments, just
enough to start her moving and then wait till she goes back and then they undo the adjustment. I favour
the latter approach myself. I tried once before to make big changes in order to speed up the corrections
but ended up getting into an over correcting feedback loop. Nasty. Note this only applies to sailing of
course, maneuvering is another matter entirely and I have not had to do that yet.

We are now, Wednesday the 14th, over half way to Cape Verde and should arrive sometime tomorrow
morning.

I’m on galley duty so will not have to get up for my night watch which will be nice.

Thanks for reading.
KJ