Riding out the storm. Reports from on board. “Well, everything’s fine here,” the captain says cheerfully. “Nastya, who doesn’t get seasick, cooked dinner; we’re eating, watching a film, it’s blowing 40 knots—everything’s good!”
Well, all in all, not bad, though yesterday was better. Then a low came through and it blew up to 35–40 knots, more in the gusts. We’re now sailing under an even smaller scrap of the baby staysail than the other day. The first mate finished her nighttime conversation with Ichthyander, but still doesn’t feel like consuming anything but fruit. The waves over the shelf are short, heaving us up and slamming us with all their might. The captain went on deck to take the helm and reef the staysail, and came back soaked to the skin. What a hottie...
Oh, and there’s a blizzard too! That’s seriously cool. Great swells come flying at us from below and over the coachroof, while overhead it’s either snowflakes or snow pellets hurtling along at 20 metres per second. Nobody sticks their nose outside, except perhaps to throw out the orange peel. We’re expecting it to strengthen.
We’re considering whether to leave a scrap of the staysail up and keep going, or heave to under mizzen. We’ll see. If we can’t keep going, we’ll heave to. The children are as cheerful and unruffled as if they were in a tank, waiting for me to finish this report from on board and sit down with them to watch The Fast and the Furious. By the end of the night, we’ll know whether we’re going to overshoot the Falklands—in weather like this, we shouldn’t be approaching land.
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You can follow the expedition in real time on our website under the Route tab, where our Iridium track is plotted. The same map, with the track and details, is available at bit.ly/iridium360.
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Hugs! Keep your fingers crossed for us, folks.