Day 195 - Overcoming Fear

Hi Everyone,

It’s been a couple days since I have felt much like writing.  We are both well enough but ready to get this trip past us.  The time spent getting north to gain sea room on the Bay of Biscay and to avoid various storms has taken a lot out of us.  We, of course, didn't avoid all the storms but I think we did reasonably well.  Not sure Grandpa would agree on that though.

I have been thinking for the last few days if I would share what Grandpa has been going through and because he seems to be getting himself out of it on his own accord, I guess I will share some of it.  If he doesn't like it he can go after me on his own blog!

So a few days ago Grandpa (my Dad) saw the white whale or the white elephant or a ghost or some damn thing.  Anyway the sea scared him and scared him in a deep humbling way.  We were dealing with the hurricane remnants and squalls and generally feeling like we were some type of target for Mother Nature.  Then the seas got big...real big, passing anything he had seen before and it got him.  Anyway, we have not been making good time and I decided if we wanted to get to land safely we need to get our boat moving and we were going to have to learn to sail in over 30kt winds not just lie hove-to trying to sleep it away.  The effort of steering at those wind speeds becomes much greater than our autopilot can handle so that means hand steering.

Part of the problem is the night.  Nights are just tough, especially on Dad.  With no moon and nasty weather it is blacker than black and incredibly disorienting.  The first situation where Dad worked up enough courage to try and get underway and sail in these bigger waves was just at dawn a few days ago.  What he did reminded me so much of when Uncle Don (Brother) and I went downhill skiing at White Face Mountain many years ago.  We went all the way to the top and were completely stunned to see how steep it was.  There was no way to go except down.  Uncle Don finally worked up enough courage to go over the lip but his body was turned to melted butter by the fear and he just instantly fell and fell and fell.  When he finally came to a stop he got up shook it off and went on fine.

Dad did the same thing.  He took off, lost all confidence in himself, and fumbled.  We jibed and wallowed.  Nothing got hurt but we went back to heaving-to and I went down below to sleep while he wrestled with his demons up in the cockpit.

We haven't spoken too much about it.  I have decided to be really careful about what I ask him to do at night but I have no problem making him steer in the day for short stints.  We have since made up some good time in really horrible sea states and he is getting better and more confident.  I struggle with being a son and being a captain.  The son hurts to see him getting older having trouble doing things he never would have had trouble with before.  The captain wants to hit him with a winch handle so that he snaps out of this crap because there are just two of us and we need to finish this thing.  So for now we will be conservative at night but push during the day.

Of interest, I asked Dad if he had ever been to Europe before.  He has not.  How many people visit Europe for the first time having arrived by 35-foot sailboat?  That should put him in some sort of elite club or something.

Currently we have worked our way north and are hove-to waiting for a wind direction change that should allow us to finally aim for Cork, Ireland.  We will be chasing a giant low pressure system that will park itself at the front gate for a couple of days.  We saw it coming and sailed out ahead of it and then to the north to give ourselves the best sailing angles and wind speeds to make this run.  This is the biggest storm yet with winds approaching 50kts but we feel like we are safe from it and can just use it to pull us in towards our destination.  If we are lucky we will find part of the Gulf Stream to give us an extra push as well.

We are both excited to get on with it.  I just used the last egg and brownies will be ready in a few minutes.

The sea has changed a lot.  It is more green than blue now and it is much colder.  We ran the heater last night and this morning to make ourselves feel a little better and it really helps to be warm.  There are no more dolphins and we are sad about that...we came to expect them each day.  The birds have changed too they look more like some type of white seagull.  We have only encountered other boats at night.  A gentleman with a British accent passed us within two miles in a sailboat.  I spoke to him on the radio just to make sure he saw us.  Neither of us was very talkative as it was raining with lightning so the conversation was all business.

We just ate a 10 year old can of peaches...damn they were good.  Not sure why no one else seems to like them.  We had nachos with chicken and refried beans.  We were trying to guess how much weight in supplies we have used up and we think it is about 700-800 pounds, probably half of that is diesel.  Before this trip I struggled with how much diesel one should carry.  I have decided you will burn as much as you have so only carry what is a safe load for the boat which is what we did.  Every once in a while Grandpa says we should have filled up in the Azores.  I for one don't even want to hear the name of those islands again.

On that note:

We are at:

17:45 UTC
50.00 N
24.00 W

Hove-to waiting for wind to change, supposed to happen before 18:00UTC We plan to head East as close to 80 True as possible till we hit land about 600 miles to the dock

 

Bob and Bob