7.12.06

We are currently hauled out in Vigo, Spain with transmission problems and will be heading towards Lisbon at the end of the week at the latest. We are all well even if the breakdown side of cruising has been a stress. I am not sure when there will be an update about the Azores with photos, but I will try for sooner rather than later.

The Third Leg

I am not sure where to start. I could write about the three days spent trying to beat a gale to the finish line without wind to help us move and a limited fuel supply. I could describe when, while on the edge of the gale in 35 knots of wind ahead of beam, a whale became very curious. I could also begin, more modestly, with the day we ate dog food. . .literally. On second thought I'll save the dog food for last.

We left the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores headed for Vigo, Spain 880 miles away on a calm overcast evening. We left a little later in the day than I really wanted.  Nevertheless, we had a decent forecast of winds in the 10 to 15 knot range aft of beam for most of the trip and we were to be met with 20 knot winds off the beam by the time we got within reach of the Iberian peninsula. The only dark clouds were a couple of frontal passages that might bring squalls, but otherwise it was a benign forecast and it looked like a fun sail.

At the end of twenty-four hours we received an update from Commanders Weather and things had changed, as they sometimes do, dramatically. We were to have light wind for the following day and then the wind would die.  By the time we were to be within 200 miles of Vigo a gale would form as three systems butted heads right on top of us. Commander's, who by now seems to know me and has figured out that I like to sail whatever wind we get, did not mince their words. "You need to hurry and get in before this systems matures as it will bring winds between 35 to 45 knots".

So we did what I have never done. We motored for hours massaging every knot to our favor, calculating again and again how much fuel we had, what speed we needed to beat the gale, feeling for every zephyr that could help the engines, not to mention our fuel consumption. I also cursed, uselessly, at every bit of current that stood against us.  We calculated that we needed an average speed of 7.5 knots for two days and then the building gale would carry us for the rest of the way. 7.5 knots is achievable with both engines, but then fuel goes out at twice the rate.  Hence life aboard was spent trying to figure out whether there was enough wind to just run one engine and motor-sail, or whether the current was too strong and required both engines etc. . . Not what I call sailing but so it went as I was bent to spare us a gale.

Twelve hours before the winds were to build we poured the last fifteen gallons of fuel into the tank  from our jerry-cans and like clock work the wind came along. A gentle breeze, it slowly built throughout the overcast afternoon. I knew I would get no sleep that night as I was not about to play it safe. We would only reef when the wind left no alternative. We were still racing that gale and this was the home stretch.

Flying along in the darkness between eight to thirteen knots we hit sixteen knots at half past midnight with an apparent wind of 35 knots. I called Matthew and Rike for our first reef. The second reef came about four hours later and the third a little before day break. This gale development was now happening fast and the question was whether we would get to Vigo before the 35 to 45 knots took us on the beam, which would force us to flee south to Lisbon, another 200 miles that would be spent fully in the gale, at night, in an area which is full of ships.

Sometimes things happen all at once and at around 10 AM, for a few seconds on that windy Tuesday, it felt as fate was aiming at us.  This came in the shape of the wind gusting to 38 knots forward of beam, which meant we were feeling 48 knots of deck; it came in the shape of a container ship and a car carrier piercing through the thick haze way too close for comfort and in all that, amidst the waves and countless white caps and geysers erupting all around the boat, a whale jumped out of the water.

 It was so big it made the waves suddenly seem small, it was so black and sleek that I wondered whether I had just witnessed a submarine do that emergency surfacing maneuver.  Then it jumped again, clearing all thoughts from my tired mind, including the ships and wind. It's landing left a trail of frothing water that stayed oxygenated in proportion to the size of the beast. The more it jumped the longer the trail of light blueish water. Amazement became downright terror when I realized that this whale was jumping at the speed of a dolphin aiming towards us like a torpedo.

It was closing in and doing it so fast that the word "insignificant" came to my mind, then I suddenly remembered the ships with relief, thinking that at least they would pick us out from the bits and pieces that would be left. Rike, whom I called with distress, yelled for me to turn on the engines which I was on my way to doing, hoping, in a last wave of desperate optimism, that this whale was simply not seeing us and a little noise would make the big happy kid realize there were normal sized people around.

I did not see where it stopped. Rike says it was fifty yards from us, and she is not prone to exaggeration. The next time I saw it it was calmly following at a distance while I was still shaking.

Rike, the girls and Matthew were great throughout the passage, putting up with a bout of pessimism that overtook me and doing what was needed to help and keep the boat going in the chaos.  In my mind the chaos started days before the wind caught up. It began when the bad forecast showed up and not because it was a bad forecast but because I had ignored a rule that I set for myself years ago when looking at weather.  Do not ignore the blips.  I had seen a forecast for 35 knot winds off the Iberian peninsula two days prior but subsequent forecasts did not show it. There is significance to a forecast showing an extreme at any point in time.

I knew the boat could take it, but of course the question when entering a gale is how bad is it going to get, how will the currents affect the waves? Will it be 35 knots or 45 of wind? We would not be in open ocean with no ships around us. The risk of collision would be a real threat and this would require careful, lucid monitoring and after spending all this energy to keep moving, lucidity was in short supply in my mind.

It was in that spirit that Rike prepared a pre-gale hearty meal of chile with meat she bought in a Portuguese supermarket, back in Sao Miguel.  When she opened it, she thought that she had mistaken ground meat for ground liver even though she had never heard of ground liver. It smelled like meat and ground liver combined but was more liquid. Despite all that it cooked up like meat. So Rike added the spices, tomatoes, corn, and beans and into our bowls it went. Matthew was the first to notice the crunchy consistency in the meat ( which did not stop him from getting seconds) the girls flat out refused to eat it and I simply could not go for the consistency nor the taste. So Matthew fell even more into Rike's favor.

As the wind mounted that night and I sat alone in the darkness I had ample time to think about dinner, and decided that the crunchy stuff in the meat was ground up bones. Knowing that only dog meat would have ground up bones I solved the puzzle that all of us had been trying to figure out with the tips of our tongues over dinner. While we shared a watch I broke the news to Matthew that he had eaten two bowls of dog food chile . That morning I told Rike my conclusion and she laughed saying "That is why it said animal on the package". No shit.

In the end, as the wind sounded like it would increase forever, the girls had not left their berth, Matthew was fast asleep in a chair with his head on the table and I laid on the couch trying to forget the wind and catch sleep. Rike kept the boat going while monitoring the radar and all the ships around us. In my stupor I felt the motion of the boat ease and the sound of the wind giving way to the sound of water against the hulls and I knew we had beaten the gale to the finish.

We shook the reefs, Rike cooked up yet another meal, which we ate heartily, and we sailed into Bayona, eight miles from Vigo, where our friends on Zia were waiting for us. So ended our transatlantic. Rike says she is ready for another. . . and I want to come back as a flying whale.

Claude and the crew from Cénou including Matthew, for whom life is like an inexhaustible dog bowl. . .