Across to Spain
19 June 2016 | Ribadeo, Spain
Judy
The Traveling Chic anno 2008 on the way to Hawaii.
A transformation takes place when you make a passage. There’s the preparations of meals, the stowing of potential flying objects. There’s sail plan prediction, course prediction, weather prediction and length of passage prediction. Lee clothes get deployed, the aft bunk becomes a sleeping cabin rather than a storage area. Water tanks topped off. Fleece clothing and boots (in Torben’s case, his slippers) are fished out of the lockers. The last thing is the final poop (in a non-moving WC) and shower. I take it one step further. I always take a seasick pill. Yes, I will admit, I am a seasick pill junkie. My drug of choice is sturgeron, which conveniently puts me to sleep on the onset, so I get to the sleeping bag first! Unfortunately, sturgeron is not FDA approved so it’s not available in the states. That makes me want it all the more!
Fearful I may run dangerously low, I have stock piled this drug over our years of cruising in Mexico, St. Martin and England. The Mexican sturgeron is the best! It has a whooping 75MG of cinnarizine. (I take half) The British sturgeron comes in last. Though the packaging is very stylish, it only has 15mg per tablet. I was munching those down on the onset of our last passage here to Spain. Like breath mints, it just wasn’t cutting it! It wasn’t until I did the comparison analysis, that I realized the low dose.
Now with my cinnarizine at the proper level, I could enjoy our sailing passage from Falmouth to Ribadero Spain! We sailed 425 miles in 60 hours. Our average speed was 7.4 on a broad reach with winds from 10 to 25 knots with a quartering sea. Tivoli was in all her glory! We sailed mostly with a reefed main and a 120% jib. Motoring time including an hour to get out of Falmouth and two and one half hours, to get into Ribadero. The water turned blue once in the Sea of Biscay and we were escorted by dolphins on two occasions! Oh, and we had one, alleged, whale sighting.
We are not moving very fast this morning. Torben is up in the cockpit enjoying the Spanish sun. I on the other hand have been busy down below putting together this video for you. I have failed to mention that the other thing that occurs only on longer passages, is that, you seem to find ways of amusing yourself. (Yourself is the operative word!) This typically takes place after 24 hours at sea. This video demonstrates why my addiction to Sturgeron. It is called “Tivoli in Motion ”. Viewers beware! Watch it to the end, (there is a guest appearance). Only then will you understand what happens when on a passage.
https://youtu.be/aaL6aToYnDs