Getting "land legs".
02 April 2016 | Crews Inn Marina
sunny and warm
We've now been in post for two days and I still don't have my "land legs". The island is still bobbing under my feet, continually moving from side to side. Sometimes I have to just stop and spread my legs till my balance comes back and I stop swaying from side to side. We left Simons Town back on January 18 with short stops in Saldanha Bay, Luederitz and Walvis Bay and then on to St Helena for five quick days. Taking off from there on February 29, "leap year day. It was a long 30 day passage with the first half having winds behind us and the last half with winds of a steady 25 knots on the beam and swells of six feet or so hitting us on the beam also. We were rolling badly from side to side, most times with the port side rail in the water. We had water streaming in the port side as when the boat was built, they had installed a drain for a deck storage cabinet along that side. The previous owner had a second much bigger drain put in but didn't seal the hole the fi rst one made. As water raced by the port side, water streamed in the hole as the seal between the hole and the tube in it had failed. We had lots of those yellow super absorbent clothes lined up along the side absorbing the water that came in. What didn't come into the cabin ended up in the bilge and then add in the water that crashed over the port side and it also went into the bilge. We were pumping it out about every three hours or so. The kids were sliding all over the floor of the main salon til they hit a cabinet where they would stay till the heel of the boat got better for them to move. Snowshoe would come out in the cockpit every now and then but Blue just stayed below the last half of the trip. As we expected, while we had steady winds most of the trip, sometimes to much winds, it died off as we approached Trinidad making us have to run the engine to get past the shoals and banks that surround the Northeast side of the island. We motored the last fifteen hours or so and drifted along the north side being shoved along by a 2.5 knot current. We pulled in just about 0900 and tied up to the Crews Inn Marina shortly there after. Immigration was easy as was Customs. Now walking between the two offices was hard. We only had sea legs and no land legs. As far as we knew, the island was floating under our feet. This went on for a couple of days but we are better now. The kids are back to normal, walking and playing on deck at all hours of the early morning and evening. I'm posti get a picture of a flower we saw during an excursion we took on Thursday just to get away from the boat for a day. The setting on the Iridium GO are getting changed to see if I can make the pictures bigger. I'll be posting for a while till I'm satisfied. --------------040603050009090700000904--