If you missed Part 2, click here.
It was just after 1:00 am on the 10th, on my
morning watch. I had gotten the GoPro working again after it’s leaking
incident, and – knock on wood – maybe it wasn’t broken after all. I left it lay
on the portside shelf wrapped in a paper towel and a few of those moisture
absorber things that come in clothing, and that you’re not supposed to eat.
After reassembling it, it appeared to be in order, I hoped.
I am supposed to be doing an article on the camera for Yachting World. The 10th was
the first day I actually had the thing out of its case. It had been sitting in
the locker for 3 weeks previously, untouched. I did get some pretty amazing
video of those dolphins swimming underwater at the bow of the boat, with the
camera held under on the end of the boathook (at that time, Arcturus was only making 3 knots – but
then how can you possible surf – and fall – with the thing if you can’t drag it
behind the boat at 5 knots?). I also got some amusing candid shots of myself by
accident, trying to set up the shot. The camera was set to shoot a photo every
two seconds automatically, so from the time I clicked the shutter until it was
in the water, several photos were recorded. The thing has an extremely wide-angle
lens, with a 170º field of view, so the photos offer a pretty unique
perspective. It’s actually pretty cool. I initially had some regrets on the
money spent (we have too many cameras as it is), but they were for naught – it
was worth it.
-
I was really starting to enjoy myself. I was certain I’d
regret saying it, but I admitted to myself that the North Sea was turning into
one of the finest offshore sails I’ve ever experienced. After a day and a half
of frustrating calms and light airs, moseying along at 2-3 knots, the wind
finally filled in from the NNW and we bowled along on a reasonably flat sea. We
took two reefs in the mainsail earlier on the 10th, just as the dawn
was creeping in. The deck was light enough that I didn’t need my headlamp (but it was still before 4:00 am). I had
led the second reefing line slightly incorrectly – it was too far aft on the
boom – so the foot of the sail wasn’t down as far as I would have liked it to
be. I lashed a sailtie through the reef clew and forced it down a bit, but I
re-led it later when we shook out the reef.
Arcturus was bang
on course, riding along just a few miles south of 58º north. We were 80 miles
from the tip of Norway, and I expected to see the lights on shore some time
later that night. I heard Norwegian spoken on the radio earlier that morning
for the first time, which was unexpected and exciting. We were closer to Sweden
than Scotland at that point, officially passing the halfway mark at 004º E. The
sea was friendly but building, steady out of the NNW. The North Sea is a shallow
sea, plunging only to a few hundred feet, so the ocean feels the bottom quite
often and can kick up an uncomfortable sea state. We experienced that a bit
leaving Inverness, the sea much bigger than the light air would have suggested,
steep and coming from two directions. At times we actually lowered the
mainsail, which was too heavy to stay filled in the light wind and sloppy
ocean, sacrificing a bit of speed for the sake of our mental states. There is
no worse sound in the world than a slatting mainsail when you’re tired. And
it’s not good for the sails or the boat.
Thanks, I think, to the shallow bottom, the ocean was a
strange color blue in the North Sea, not the deep purple of the open sea, but
rather a greyish blue, like the color of gunmetal. It could also be the lack of
sunlight – it was overcast probably 5/6 of the time – and the grey sky simply
projected onto the surface of the sea. The wind was getting up a bit then, and
there was a distinctive hum in the rigging.
The birdlife, as it was the entire way across the Atlantic,
was thriving in the North Sea. I’d seen mainly two types – one that reminded me
of a sheep, with a high forehead, stubby tail and symmetrical, short wings,
very aestecially pleasing. He was white on his head and body, with grey on the
tops of his wings and a distinct white pattern that brought to my mind angels.
The other, more comical type of the two – and my favorite – reminded me of my
dog Lewie. They were longer and dopey, with longer stretched necks and beaks,
and long, thin, high-aspect-ratio wings. They were all white, with the last 1/3
of their wingtips, top and bottom, painted black. They were very serpentine
when they flew, resembling a dinosaur in a weird way, or a monitor lizard. I
liked watching them.
A fleet of four sheep-birds circled the boat in close
succession, flying round and round for no obvious reason.
Those big dolphins came back – one seemed enchanted by the
windvane and cruised along with his nose nearly touching the vane paddle. He
sat there, doing 5-6 knots with the boat, for several minutes, his body
sideways in the water, acting like he was looking up at me. He was only two
feet away. I could have touched him. It was a magical feeling, that close to
nature.
-
Norway was soon in sight off the port bow. Norway!
Scandinavia! The north! Holy moly. It was starting to get surreal for me, the
end of that enormous challenge we set for ourselves, which was then nearly in
reach. I wouldn’t allow myself to see the finish then, but setting eyes on the
mountainous coast of Norway was exciting.
And what a day we were having. I predicted the day before
that the wind would hold, and it did. It continued to build, blowing away the
dampness and cloud cover of the morning to reveal a sparkling blue day. The air
was clear up there, the clouds thin and whispy, transparent almost, the sea
that dark greyish blue and flecked with foam from the occasional roller that
jumped aboard. I started seeing a red sort of jellyfish in the water, many of
them, which apparently have been plaguing the west coast of Sweden all summer
(as it turned out, after speaking to our diving friend Anders in Gothenburg,
that this summer has been normal – it was just that last summer there were none
around, and people got spoiled).
Those birds with the angel wings were wheeling and diving in
the fresh breeze, working to windward by first swooping down to the surface of
the sea, then turning abruptly into the wind and riding it up in a long,
banking turn before diving again and repeating the pattern.
Mia handed the rest of the mainsail earlier in the day, and
we were absolutely boiling along, hanging onto the genoa probably longer than
we should have, but enjoying the ride. A wave slammed into the boat and knocked
us 30º off course and nearly found its way into the companionway, where I was
sitting, and about gave me a soaking. It didn’t though, and I was grateful
(ironically, shortly after thinking that a wave did find it’s way into the cockpit and down the companionway,
splashing me (I was asleep in my bunk) and drenching Mia, who was sitting on the galley
countertop. It filled the cockpit to the locker lids and sluiced down the after cowl
vent into the lazarette, filling the bilge up to the bottom of the engine. Mia’s
clothes were soaked. Had the weather not been so fine otherwise, it might have
been a worrying situation. We just laughed it off and pumped the bilge).
I predicted that night that the wind would abate as the sun
went down. It did, and never came back.
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