2nd October

Thursday 2nd October 2008, day 75. 33° 03’.7 N, 016° 18’.8 W. Porto Santo.

We have arrived! A great sail, with the wind in the right direction (ENE), and the right speed (16 – 26 knots) for a whole three and a half days. We had the spinnaker up twice, and most of the rest of the time sailed on the main and the boomed-out jib. Tomia behaved beautifully, and although she couldn’t help rolling and veering when caught by quartering seas, she has never felt other than totally solid and in her right environment.

We passed due west of Gibraltar early on Wednesday morning, quickly followed by Tangier. Rabat was next, on Thursday morning, then Casablanca, and if we went straight east to Africa now, we would arrive somewhere near Cap Beddouza. Suddenly, having been ambling along the coast of Portugal and Spain, safely staying in Europe, we are travelling properly. As long as we were on the Portuguese coast, we could always have decided that ocean crossing wasn’t for us, and that we would turn left and go into the Med. From here, though, it is probably easier to go on, south and west, to the Caribbean, with the trade winds behind us, than to turn back and beat our way 500 miles against the prevailing winds to mainland Europe. So we really are off!

We are also exhilarated and amazed (still) to find that it was possible to take our lives by the scruff of the neck and do what we wanted to do with them.

Life on passage worked pretty well for us. We kept four four-hour watches from eight in the evening, giving us each two decent slugs of sleep. We slept in the little lower bunk just forward of the saloon, well wedged in with the lee-cloth against the boat’s rolling. At change-over, one put the kettle on, roused the other, did a quick handover about the wind, the waves, forecasts, distance made, any potential dangers from other shipping, and then tucked themselves into the berth while the sheets were still warm from the previous body. Then from midday we would both be up, sharing the experience and doing various tasks about the boat before it was time to start getting going on supper.

Preparing food at sea is a whole art-form in itself, with the boat continually in motion, and any locker ready to violently eject its entire contents if opened at the wrong point of a roll. The sea-cook needs at least five hands: one to open a locker, two to hold the contents in place, another to find the required ingredient, and of course, one to hold on tight to stop themselves being thrown across the boat. Being 60% down on this complement creates constant problems!

To get ingredients out of the fridge, the procedure is this: take the two cushions off the berth above it, balance them on the next door cushions. Take up the plywood berth support, and balance it against the table, without scratching the cabin floor. Bend sideways around the table to lift up the lid of the fridge, and look around, as always, for somewhere stable to put it. Decide, as always, that for the few seconds it will take to find the broccoli, the lid will be just fine, balanced on the edge of the fridge. Choose a calm moment, let go of the lid with one hand, and dive into the fridge. The boat lurches, as always, and between stopping the plywood from banging against the table support and the cushions from going flying, let go of the lid entirely. Take fingers out of the way smartly as the lid shoots towards you. Vow, as always, that the next time you will find a proper place to put the fridge lid.

Repeat.

Having got the broccoli out, replace the lid and the plywood (again without scratching the cabin floor), retrieve the cushions from the other side of the cabin and put them back too. Retrieve the broccoli from wherever it has rolled to (round vegetables on a boat are a bad idea. Give me a nice flat broad bean, it stays put).

Finally, and this is the key bit, remember that you also needed to get out the potatoes.

Repeat.

Despite all this we have eaten well: chicken curry (followed by curried chicken soup for lunch), seafood risotto (followed by seafood soup for lunch, you begin to see the pattern?), then pork chops with apricots and garlic, new potatoes and broccoli, and finally tonight something quite like kofte, made with something Portuguese that was quite like cracked wheat.