Atlantic Passage

Had a nice day sanding and painting the outside the Galley.
The Captain has decided that in order for everybody to get the most out of our stay here they will let each watch go ashore for two days at a time.

I’m stuck on board till Saturday which is OK.  Haven’t decided what I’m going to do on my two days, I might just get a hotel room and veg out, and surf the net all day

The wind controlled angle of the ship is making  it tough to get an Internet connection which is a bit frustrating but hey, it’s Africa getting Internet at all is pretty damn cool!

More later.

It’s later
Spent the day working on the galley.
Everybody is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the other watch who have the last two day off.  Hopefully they will have some good info on things to do and if it is worth it to go to Marrakech.

The weather was beautiful today fairly warm with a light wind from the NE. Hopefully it will stay warm tomorrow and Sunday as well.

Thanks for reading

KJ

Spend Tuesday scrubbing the rust stains off the white paint with a very powerful solution called “Green Knight”.  It is very cold and the wind is strong from the NE so we were secure at our anchor.

Today I’m heading ashore to check out the town. Sounds really interesting and exotic. I’ll try to post some pictures and updates after I get back.

Later…
I’m sitting in the lobby of a nice little hotel (with WiFi), The Dar Naciria, after having spend the morning and afternoon in the old city. This is a fabulously exotic tangle of narrow streets and little shops selling everything: clothes, leather goods, fruit, spices, meats, wood crafts, metal work, cameras, watches, musical instruments and antiques all with a glad attitude and very friendly air of hospitality!

It’s great to get ashore after that passage, although it is still cold the sun is shining in a watery blue sky.

We had lunch in a restaurant that was probably 15′ wide and 20′ long.  The food was fabulous and cheap and the people walking by were probably the most varied in dress I have ever seen.  The traditional male garb here can best be described as “Jawa Classic” That and the ubiquitous bluejeans are about it for men but women have an amazing variety of clothes in all colors from traditional, almost burkah like, gowns to fairly modern outfits.

The kids, well kids are kids and seem to have stepped out of Zellers, which is a bit jarring.

I’ll try to upload some pics.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Pictures of the passage and my rambles in the old town are here.

This morning dawned bright and sunny with the sea settling down to a steady groudswell from the North West.

Had a really good breakfast this morning, nothing fancy but it sure
tasted good, amazing what a couple of days of bad weather does for the appetite. The diesel galley stove refused to light during the gale so today is the first day that it has worked since the day after Thanksgiving.

Working in the galley, our watch cleans it after supper each day, when they were trying to light the stove really did a number on my stomach. Enclosed spaces, diesel fumes and big seas are a bad combination. This morning all is well and I was famished by the time I heard those delightful words “Watch below”

We should be in Essaouira Morocco by this evening. The Captain will then decide if we can anchor or if we will have to stand off till the swell subsides.

With luck I will be able to let everything dry out, including me, before I have to go on watch again this evening.

We arrived in Essaouria around 3:00 this afternoon after motoring in as the wind had dropped away to almost nothing. Still pretty big swell running though. This is a pretty exposed anchorage but it looks like we should be OK as long as the wind doesn’t pick up from the West.

Lots of fortifications here, mostly built by the Portugese I believe.
Should be a cool place to explore.

Thanks for reading
K

Finally the weather has moderated a bit and we are heading back to the South. This means that if all goes well we should reach our destination in Morocco tomorrow evening.

After last nights squall things were more reasonable on watch today. 
I only bashed mself a couple of times and only gashed myself once.  I think I will have very few body parts that haven’t been bruised or lacerated at least once by the time I get home.

Even when the seas have moderated they can still throw a surprise twist into your day.  Mid afternoon today while I was off watch  I went to the head, but it was  busy so decided to stand and wait on deck. I was just in front of the Fore mast fife rail enjoying the sunshine  when I heard a sort of thumping crash and the ship shuddered.  “This can’t be good” thought I and  what seemed like a full second later a wall of water came crashing down across the fo’csle head and drenched me.  The second Mate says the splash went up to the topsails!   Of course  since I was just going to the head I didn’t have my fowlies on, blah.

But at least the Sun was shining

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Shortly after I went to bed last night the wind picked up to a force 8-9 Gale. Since we were hove to the ship began to seriously roll, like 45 degrees or more. All sorts of things rattled and crashed as well as the seas pounding against the side of the hull.  Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep.

This morning we wore ship to get back underway in a steady force 7 with much larger seas, the captain says 18-20′. Still rolling, making movement very difficult.  Starting to feel a bit queasy after 12 hours of this, blah.

Moving food around is difficult and doing the dishes an exercise in acrobatics. I found sitting at the stern to be the best even though the motion is greater simply because I can wedge myself in and not have to worry about sliding around.

The nice thing is that the sun is shining at least, there are rainbows in the spray when the rollers come crashing aboard.

Last word goes to the Bosun Kolin who said “This is what you paid for right?”  Right

Thanks for reading
KJ

P.S. When I went on night watch at 4:00 I had first lookout. The seas  were too rough to be on the fo’csle so we had to stand watch on the bridge, which is just in front of the chart house.  About a half hour into my watch a great black bank of cloud blotted out the stars and the wind began to howl. The gusts were strong enough to knock me off my feet. The mate says they were easily 50 knots in the gust close to Force 10 steady!  We hove to again to ride it out then wore round and reset the sails at 8:00am.  We are now sailing South again.  Hopefully that is the last we’ll see of that system.

The Mediterranean shoved us through the Straits of Gibraltar with a cold squally blast.

It was quite cold on watch last night and about 5:30am it began to rain heavily.  A big front moved through and dropped the temperature significantly. 

I ended up on helm in pitch darkness as the front moved up.  The Mate had John take over on helm as it arrived, much to my relief.

As a watery dawn broke the wind dropped away and we briefly hove to until the mates were confident in which direction the wind would come from.  We ended up sailing almost due North for a while.

The ship was really rolling in that brief calm but there was no sign of seasickness and I’m not even queasy typing this which is cool

No sign of the potential gale yet but there was a big low forming right over us when the wind dropped this morning.

I think I will dig out my heavy sweater for the night watch this evening.

Later…
Just came off the evening 4-8 watch. Ended up not needing the sweater, which is good I was not looking forward to using up all my ammo, so to speak, this early in the campaign.

The weather has moderated nicely and the forecast now calls for steady West winds with some showers for tomorrow.  We are about 100 miles or so out in the Atlantic and the sky has cleared to reveal an amazing  display of stars.  A bright planet to the west is even  shining on the sea, I think it is Venus.

Tomorrow we ill be heading farther South along the coast of Morocco.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving to all you folks down South!  We will be having our Thanksgiving tomorrow, Friday, with a turkey dinner all the fixins and lots of pies (7 at last count) with various fillings. Yummy!

iThis morning dawned breezy and cold with some dark cloudy patches.
During the morning we had to put on our immersion suits so we coulkd wax the zippers and check them for damage. we also tested the lights and inflation devices.

Then we hoisted the anchor and sailed out of Gibraltar Hrbour under Topsails, and T’gallants.

The weather has been deteriorating steadily all day but the wind is almost due West which is too good to pass up. The temperature ha also been dropping. Apparently there is a massive coldfront moving down the West coast of Europe bringing unusually cold wreather.  When we went on watch at 4:00 pm this afternoon I added my longsleeve hoody under my fowl weather gear and boy did I need it.  

We were chased out of the straights by a wicked looking squall line.  The seas were steep and grey, almost like polished steel.  On lookout ships appeared and disappeared in the rain squalls.  Eventually the Sun came out and even though it was still rainy,windy and cold we were followed by a lovely double rainbow.

So we are nearly in the Atlantic. Mike (the first mate) says there is the possibility of a big SW gale in the next few days so we are going to head West and get ourselves some sea room.

Could be an interesting couple of days.
Thanks for reading.
KJ    

This morning dawned bright but cold.

Yesterday while we were ashore the on watch had to let go the heavy port anchor to bolster our starboard one which was already out. Apparently the ship had started to drag her anchor in winds gusting to force 7.  This meant that this morning we got to hoist BOTH anchors.  This was my first time on the windlass which was one of those “not too tough but hard on the back” things I’m sure I will be very familiar with in a month or so.

Once the anchors were up we chugged over to the fueling dock and took on enough fuel to top up our bunkers. Did I mention that it is clear and cold.

The Mate then announced that these winds had shifted to headwinds and would be leaving tomorrow so it was back out to anchor.  

During the afternoon I learned how to do serving and tarred all the new servings on the rigginng screws.

There is a lovely three masted topsail schooner anchored beside us. David says they were at the tallships fstival in Bergen which is cool.

I expect it will be very cold on watch tonight as it will be clear and the wind is still force 4-5.

Thanks for reading
KJ