Crossing the Biscay Abyssal Plain
07 July 2016 | Crossing the Biscay Abyssal Plain
Graham
Yes, we are still motoring! During the past three days, the maximum true wind speed we have recorded on Quasar IV has been....4 knots!! This is about 40 knots less than that recorded last Tuesday. We have about 145 Nm to go now before reaching La Coruna, NW Spain, where we hope to arrive somewhere in the early hours of Saturday morning. There has been a marked improvement in the weather and associated temperature resulting in a strip off with the Musto offshore waterproofs and on with the lightweights at last. I was on watch last night from 7-10pm in a flat calm sea, surrounded by dolphins for nearly two hours, listening to The Endless River album by Pink Floyd, watching a glorious sunset out to the West. I saw no ships last night at all. Tracey is recovering well from sea sickness now and is feeling much better during her watches, ready to write her new book 'How to manage sea sickness by eating dried food for three days...'! Tony can now move his neck again so is no longer trying to get around the boat in the manner of a poorly articulated robot, so this is great news as he has been in a great deal of pain whilst remaining a solid crew member. The snag with a crew of three is that whatever state you are in, you need to get on with running the boat in watches. Tracey and Tony have both made an excellent job of this despite the ailments. As always, I am one of the lucky individuals who does not suffer from the sea movement so have taken the opportunity to be skipper/chef for a few days which I quite enjoy anyway. Early this afternoon, we heard a very strange whistling noise building up, a bit like the sound of torpedoes in the old war movies....very disconcerting until we saw what looked like a French Maritime Patrol Learjet pass us at what seemed like just above the mast. I couldn't quite catch the name of the pilot written on his flying suit but am quite certain he was wearing gold tinted Raybans...!! Far too close for our liking. There has been a fair amount of shipping traffic running parallel with our course, this being the plan so that we did not keep getting bothered with avoiding large ships. We'll be starting to cross relatively near to the Finisterre Traffic Separation Scheme funneling area early tomorrow morning so a busy day for me as the skipper. That'll be after we stop the engine for a breather and refuel the tank with an extra 80 litres of diesel, about 25 more mores of motoring, which has traveled with us tied to the guard rail in four jerry cans. With very little wind forecast for the next four days, I am very glad that that I brought the extra fuel along! Off to sleep now ready for my Killer Watch tonight, the 0100 to 0400 hrs in the pitch black (no moon again tonight really). Just a quick reminder, our location can be seen by looking to the right hand side of the blog under Favourites, then click on Winlink Position Reporter.