Day 3: Tortola, BVI to Bermuda - 16/07/12

Well, I’m back at my computer which must mean that my head is out of the bucket.  What a wonderful start, but actually, the start was OK, the OK bit just didn’t last very long.

Mike woke me up at 7 am with a cup of tea.  The cup of tea part was good but the being woken wasn’t.  So much for the ‘we’ll get up and go when we wake up”, the ‘we’ part figuring high on my agenda.

I frantically got the blog up to date and posted and after last minute preparations, we slipped the lines at 9 am.

There was a good wind, around 20-25 knots, and we started to make great time almost immediately, doing around 8-9 knots.  We were on a beam reach and even with two reefs in the main and half the genoa we were flying.

However, the sea got lumpier and lumpier the further we sailed from Tortola.  By mid afternoon, what was just a bit uncomfortable in the morning had become pretty bloody intolerable.  We were both being thrown around whenever we tried to move.  And then that sick feeling descended.  I called for the bucket.  When the sea is that rough, a bucket is preferable to going anywhere near the side, hideous as looking at your own vomit may be.

I was keeping it together, just, until I had to go to the loo.  That finished me and Mike quickly handed me the bucket while I was still sitting there on the throne.

Everything was downhill after that.  All I was capable of was lying in a sweaty little heap on the sofa.  Every time I sat up, a fresh wave of nausea would wash over me and I would lie back down again.  My watches were done lying on the sofa with the alarm clock set every 15 minutes.  I couldn’t work out which stage of sea sickness I was at – the one where you are frightened you are going to die, or the one where you’re frightened you’re not going to!

And it just carried on.

By the next day, I still couldn’t keep stuff down.  The record for holding onto a drink was about 2 minutes.  Having just cleaned out the bucket with half of a can of coke I had just thrown up, I drank the other half just to watch it make its reappearance.  I decided that if I fancied any more coke, I would just cut out the middle man and tip it straight into the bucket!

The sea conditions did not change although Mike kept telling me that they would be better the next day.

I ached all over, actually we both did.  The effort of just staying still when the boat is moving relentlessly like that is enormous.  Pain killers would not take the headache away, probably because it was caused by dehydration.  I felt as weak as a kitten and longed for a shower and hair wash but wasn’t strong enough or brave enough to attempt one.  I was so tired that I had no trouble sleeping, fitful sleep though it was.  We didn’t stick rigidly to our 5 hours on/5 hours off, we took our sleep when we needed it.

Then when I went on watch at midnight, the sea had started to calm down a little.  I lay on the sofa again with the alarm clock, taking two large mouthfuls of water every time the alarm sounded, and ate a couple of the dry rosemary biscuits Heather had left behind.  I still felt sick every time I moved, but I didn’t have to reach for the bucket.

Gradually during the day the sea state improved.  By lunch time I had improved so much I really fancied the chicken salad I’d planned, and happily it felt the same about my tummy as it stayed put.  The headache still persisted for some hours until a couple of bottles of ‘Ting’ sorted it out.  When I woke from my afternoon nap, I felt normal.

But all good things obviously have their flip sides.  In order for my to feel so good, the sea had become almost flat calm and with the wind dropping to 7 knots we were getting under 4 knots of speed.  Just not enough.  So an engine went on.  By late in the evening, the pathetically small amount of wind had moved around to come from almost due north and Mike had to put both engines on.  That in turn means that we can’t have the generator on as well for the air conditioning.  Yuk.  Still, I had a really hot shower and loved every second of it.  Maybe we’ll get just a little bit of wind tomorrow.  But please, please, please, no rough seas.

Our position is:   25 degs, 01 mins N, 64 degs 40 mins W

Distance so far:  400 miles