The sea is so smooth it looks like an oil slick

When Rowan woke me at 1am he said I should look at the stars. In particular Mars was shining so bright, and the Southern Cross easy to spot. Still no sign of the meteor shower in this dazzling starlit sky. The moon is nowhere to be seen and the sea was flat as a pancake, I had no idea it would go so flat this far from land. At about 3am I thought I could see lights that were not showing on the radar, so I went to the helm seat to check it out. The lights in the pitch dark were the reflections of the stars on the sea, which looked like oil had been poured on it, it was so slick and reflective. The wake from Polepole was sparkling with phosphorescence, it was like sailing through a world of fairy lights above and around us, quite unworldly in this remote part of the Atlantic.

Sunrise

Eerie oil slick smooth sea hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic!

Heading straight ahead into the storm and behind us….

a much more peaceful scene.

Finished my book which was a very light compulsive read, which I really enjoyed and empathised with (my scaredy pants paranoia!). Started my next book, Cloudstreet, recommended as better than Educated and The Glass Palace, but in the same vein, only set in Australia. It is the wonderful thing about not having internet – there are no distractions, and no newspapers to read.

4:30 I could see the light from the sun rising, and by 5:30 there was a stunning red sunrise with a dramatic storm cloud with sheets of rain coming from it. I was hoping like mad that we were going to just miss it. It was quite spectacular, the whole sky was pink and reflected in the still sea. Rowan was up at 6 to see the tail end of it. Our surreal world was interrupted by a tanker passing 5 miles behind us and brought us back to reality.

The storm cloud dispersed and we thankfully were not affected by it at all. The wind picked up for a bit but died again to nothing and we had to motor all morning. Right on time according to R’s weather forecast the wind started to pick up at 1pm and we were able to get sailing again.

No wind (3.5 knots) and empty radar screen

I spent a steamy hour doing some extreme Sudoku’s and getting stuck into my book, it’s quite hard work and pretty depressing but an amazing insight to Australia in the 50’s. This evening’s game was Speed Scrabble, which I started off with a terrible hand with no vowels but thankfully came good at the end!

By supper the wind was really picking up a bit and the sea turned into long big waves. Rowan headed to bed and the sea got choppier and rougher, in the dark you can’t see the storm clouds and at 11pm the boat ground to a halt even though there was wind which I found very odd, then an alarm message came up to say the rudder could no longer steer. Poor Rowan I had to wake him up as I couldn’t work out what was going on. We were obviously in a storm, the lull before it hit us. Luckily the wind got us back sailing and we only got a little rain. Rowan gallantly said he would stay up and I went to bed. Rocked to sleep downstairs with the waves pounding on the side of Polepole, it took a while to get to sleep with all that banging noise. Two things I am eternally grateful to be blessed with – firstly I am a very good sleeper and secondly I have never had a twinge of seasickness. Even Rowan had a moment of feeling a bit peaky today.

Today’s sunset