Sailing to Bermuda

May 18, 2009 – Monday
I knew it was going to happen and I even warned Don about it yesterday. Today was the day we paid in full for the calm nice sunny times of yesterday. The winds kicked in and the sky turned gray. Early in the morning I heard a faint call on the radio. Don and I were on watch, but he was below making some hot chocolate. By the time I got the volume turned up, the call had come in three times and I only caught part of the position called out, which seemed it might be our location. I could see no boat in sight and did no respond. Don thought I should have replied even if it wasn’t for us. After a few minutes I thought duh, who else was out here in the middle of the ocean! Then I wondered if someone was trying to warn us about approaching weather. Thirty minutes later a ship appear on the horizon to our stern and hailed us. It was a British merchant ship following up on a Coast Guard report that a sailboat was overdue and missing. Our reply and name confirmed we were not the missing boat and we thank them for their concern. It was good to know other ships were looking out for each other in situations like this. Soon the waves and swells grew and it made for a miserable day. Meals were skipped and sleeping was nearly impossible. John was feeling terrible and suffered the most. Don got sick as well. The head started acting up just to add to our problems. Instead of flushing it reversed course and began doing great impressions of a volcano! Oh joy! We entered our own little small gray world of rock and roll, wet and wild, sleep depravation and starvation. The winds were strong and resumed the heeling position. The humidity was not as bad as our trip going to Bermuda, but still it added to our misery. At night it was cold and keeping both warm and dry was hopeless. After my watch I would change into dry clothes to try and catch some sleep only to get up at the next watch and get soaked all over again. The only time we saw the sun was just before sunset when it dropped under the line of dark clouds, shinned on us very briefly and then it was gone. Bright orange and looking hot, John made a sizzling sound at it sank in the ocean. It was just a quick tease but at least we knew it still existed!