72 Hours off the Grid

We are going on 48 hours completely off the grid, no internet, no messages, no social media. It has been oddly refreshing to be cut off from the chaos of the world, the only thing that stresses me is that we cannot look at the weather, but suddenly I feel like that is a little bratty, because up until recently that was not even an option for sailors, so the fleeting thought left my mind. However all the essentials are still on hand, EPIRB, Garmin and all the emergency gadgets that a modern sailor would have.

On Saturday night we hit an all time record of almost breaking the sound barrier 😳 ( ok slight exaggeration ) flying at over 18 knots SOG 🤯😱 with the very bold Mr Oxley soaring in the air, thankfully, the wind remained around 15 knots apparent, however the swell was massive, we spent the better part of 10 hours surfing waves at insane speeds, which I think most sailors will agree, is way too fast for our boat. In the dark of night and early hours of the morning the feeling of speed is even more elevated. Taking down the Oxley in the middle of the night at these speeds would not be safe, so we simply continued to surf those waves as this was a safer option so long as the wind speed did not increase.

By day break we were back down to more sensible speeds and average swell. After some DISCUSSION between Eric and I ( let's call it that ) we finally came to an agreement to take the Oxley down before dark and sail just with the genoa, this would of course cause us to be travelling at the speed of a sloth, due to the wind direction. After experiencing 18 knots I was happy to sloth it for a while. We would catch this up during day light hours this was my theory and I stuck to it.

Apparently old age is effecting my usual need for adrenaline🙄 and now in Eric'a older age he seems to be looking for adrenaline. Thank heavens we reached this need at different points in life as we may not have survived to tell the tail had we both been on the same page all the time.

Sunset arrived and we stuck to the agreed plan, to take Mr Oxley down for the night, we did also decide to do the test of doing it just the two of us, to ensure that we can do it alone, me at the helm and Eric at the Oxley. Well needless to say we discover the sheet (rope) that brings the sock down has become damaged and not able to pull through the mast. Our back up squad (Lester) is brought in to assist with some extra man hands, only to realise there is nothing that can be done about it at this moment in time. Well Mr Oxley my friend will have to keep flying through the night. An emergency plan was put in place should it be absolutely necessary to bring him down. The good news is that we had a good night of safe sailing at very norma speeds, we are doing on average over 200nm per day, yes this is still some serious miles, but we have slowed down to what I would consider comfortable.

Current situation on Monday morning, port engine not charging, generator behaving like a brat, and Mr Oxley simply not following instruction with his torn sheet.

We are now 72 hours with no internet and despite our challenges I am still enjoying the peace. Angela and Makyla are still running day shifts at 6 hours each, while we run night shifts. I am starting to think it might be time to put them back on normal shifts as we need some night time rest.

Below you will see a video of what 16 knots looks like without motors, believe me it is way more dramatic in real life,