The last few days have been a blur with pounding waves and howling winds.
The air temperature on deck is a very cold 4 degrees Celsius making a 4
hour watch system very challenging. Although we were sailing in 3-4 meter
swell with 30-40 knots of winds screaming past our ears ripping off the
tops of the waves and sending all that spray straight into our eyes and
face striking us so hard it feels like a slap in the face, these things
were all very difficult but it was the cold that was the worst. Once your
gloves were wet you would loose all feeling in your hands, during the next
stage you felt like you had placed your hands in a tub of burning cinders
and stood by while they burn with a fiery pain. If you are unfortunate
enough to have to take your gloves off to do something like undo a gimp
shackle and were double unfortunate to get splashed by a wave then you
will loose all movement as they cramp into a tight ball making it near
impossible to complete your task anyway. Now imagine this for 4 hours at
a time with your toes going equally numb and keeping it up for a few days
a a minimum.
Thankfully for us the winds have finally abated as we come out of this Low
Pressure system offering current conditions of a balmy 8 degrees Celsius
on deck, blue sky’s and the most wonderful thing in the world, SUNSHINE.
This is a great opportunity to try to dry ourselves out a little bit and
defrost our fingers and toes for a day but this is the only respite that
we get as there is yet another Low Pressure System coming our way with
predicted winds up to 40 knots by tomorrow evening. Storm preparation are
underway and we all are bracing our selves for head winds and large
rolling seas to offer up even more challenges.
