After light winds and calm seas on Sunday and Monday, a line of squalls came through around sunset on Monday, bringing with them rain, 20-25 it winds and a confused, lumpy sea state. Before the squalls arrived we reefed the Genoa and main and then later in the evening furled away the Genoa and switched to the staysail.
Last night it was Kelvin’s turn to cook dinner and he made Bangers & Mash with carrots. Cooking and eating in rough seas are difficult but we all enjoyed the meal. The night before had been my turn to cook and I was lucky to have had calmer conditions, as I made ribeye steaks with baked potato, mushroom sauce and asparagus grilled with citrus soy sauce.
None of us slept well last night due to the lumpy conditions but we know that once we get tired enough, we will adjust to sleeping while on passage. The various alarms on board Nakee also go off periodically in the night and they are loud enough to wake the dead, so we are getting up several times a night to keep tabs on shipping, squalls picked up by our radar, changes in wind direction and speed. So far we have seen only two ships and one other sailboat.
Yesterday’s highlight was hearing and feeling a loud bump as Nakee was hit by one or two small whales! I had been seated at the inside helm at when it happened and so looked out the starboard window and saw two whales swimming alongside us. I jumped up, grabbed my phone and climbed in the cockpit as fast as I could to try and film them, but by then they were swimming away. They can however be seen and heard in the clip I managed to film. It is not clear to us if the collision was intentional on their part or accidental. They didn’t appear to be injured and no damage to Nakee has been apparent. We don’t know what kind of whales they were, but did not appear to be orcas.
Today (Tuesday) the skies have cleared but winds in the low 20s as well as 2 meter waves have stayed with us, making it challenging to move around the boat.
