Night Time Trauma Continues
13 May 2012 | 180 Miles NE of Turks and Caicos
Jeff
Once again at about the midnight hour, last night, Pam woke me to access squalls and lightning areas that we were approaching. When I got on deck I was greeted by a sight I was very uncomfortable with. What clouds I cold see were mountainous and filled with lightning flashes, mostly cloud to cloud but some very nasty looking bolts went down to the water. At first there seemed to be nowhere to go but turn around. I thought of slowing the boat down but couldn't tell if that would do any good. After watching the display for about 20 minutes it looked like straight ahead there might be an opening. So I decided to stay the course and by the grace of God and steady wind we worked our way thru the maze of lightning bolts. Fortunately they continued to be cloud to cloud. The real strange thing about this lightning is that there is no sound associated with it just silent flashing. This went on for about two hours. After the first 30 minutes or so I sent Pam below to get some sleep. She is not doing very well, she has the fever that I had at the beginning of the trip and really has needed a lot of rest. Thus far she has hung in and managed to do the meals and allow me to get the roughly eight hours of sleep I have gotten in the last three days. Hopefully we will be able to continue this way until she starts to feel better. I'm hoping tomorrow she will see some improvement. Our 24 hour run yesterday was a slight improvement to 129 nautical miles. There is the possibility of more squall activity tonight, but it s supposed to be reduced somewhat. We can always hope that tomorrow will be better.