Just before I get up for my watch, Mike takes in the genoa and puts the engine on again. We sail for all of 7 hours before the wind starts to die away. Oh well. Better than nothing I suppose.
My throat, which felt tight before I went to bed, is now very sore and the glands in my neck are like golf balls. On top of that, all the tossing and pitching of the boat has made me wrench my back somehow and it is now very uncomfortable. My stomach is also playing up again and add the hot flushes to that and you have one very miserable, grouchy first mate.
As we motor sail through the night, a large container ship makes it’s appearance heading straight for us (as far as AIS can determine). I watch it close up on us from behind until I can’t wait any longer. Their name still hasn’t come up on the screen so I just call for a vessel at their position. No reply. Eventually their name appears and I call twice again. No reply. Cursing I alter course by 10 degrees but am not sure it’s enough and am worried about altering them too much because we still have sail out. If we were just using the engines I wouldn’t have worried. Eventually I wake Mike and he tells me to alter course by another 30 degrees and the ship passes us half a mile away (instead of the 0.008 miles AIS was showing at the beginning). Why don’t these buggers answer their radios? They must recognise their name even if they don’t speak English. At least a rattle in a foreign language would at least show they knew someone was out there!
When Mike comes on watch in the morning, I head straight for bed. I feel really lousy now and have no energy, falling asleep almost straight away but not for long as it’s so hot. I come back up and lie in the salon pathetically. Mike says he always knows when I feel really rough now if he can feel bits underfoot that I can’t be bothered to sweep with my little green wonderbroom.
The slow crawl continues even more slowly. With the current against us still, even running one of the engines quite hard only produces at most 4 knots. At least the sea is quite smooth in the afternoon which is more than can be said for it in the evening. It turns lumpy and choppy. Sitting on the loo in the bow is like going over a humpback bridge – a wave sends you up in the air and for a split second you feel like you are floating in a vacuum before you come back down with a huge thump but filled with awe that the boat can stay in one piece with all the crashing and banging that it goes through.
We heat up the last of the fish stew for dinner. I still feel too lousy to cook although not lousy enough to not want to eat!
Our position is: 10 deg 38 min S, 36 deg 06 min W
Distance so far: 22289 nautical miles
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