“Is this normal?” I ask.
“It’s no different than during the day,” Rick says and he bounces by to flop on our couch. His face illuminates with the sparkle of his Kindle. He takes heavy weather sailing in stride.
At night, devoid of much visual stimuli, I am more aware of the physical sensations of sailing. During heavy weather sailing from New Zealand to Fiji my sense of urgency is strong.
Wednesday: sandwiched between walls of water and like the innards of a drum, when the boat was repeatedly clubbed by the battens of our new sail bag. Gusts of 50 knots.
Thursday: stabbing and folding as though the boat is sliding down a cliff
Friday: rolling around in a giant ladle, as though we are the fatty bits on top of a soup (trying to escape the spoon)
I am posting video of night versus day. In retrospect, neither of the videos is terrifying.
Character building, perhaps but not terrible.
There are 92 hours remaining to our next waypoint near Fiji.
As it turns out, what I am describing may have been understated. This was heavy weather sailing, sufficient to break off our port rudder. But that is a different story.
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Heavy weather sailing in photos
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