Be calmed and carry on

not a puff...

Day 8, still 25N 27W
Thankgoodness we have a boat that makes way even in light airs. If we didn't, I fear I might have lost Casper to the deep blue yonder. It's just not good for an ex-racing sailor to be becalmed. It's been three days now and (if I think about the distance still to travel) it is all rather tedious and frustrating. Looking at our position on the North Atlantic chart, we have covered 1mm in the last 48 hours, and not even in the right direction. At our current average speed of just over a knot it would take us another 30 days to get to the Azores! Of course my logic brain tells me the wind will come back but it's hard to imagine. If, however, I ignore the chart, the distance to destination and our speed over ground, this is really rather special. Who else gets to holiday in such peaceful and beautiful surroundings? I admit it may not be everybody's tasse de the but my boat it certainly doth float.
Day 9, 27N 28W
No no actually it's day 10 not 9. Somehow lost 24 hours in the lethargic fuzz of these windless days (which seem to have lasted an eternity). Yesterday tempers started to fray. We weren't completely becalmed, no. Instead the breeze chose to toy with us like a boy who plays with a cricket before he rips its legs off. Further North they announce "eight, nine, gale, rain, fog" - the dismemberment that awaits. 'Put us out of our misery! Blow or don't blow'. In the end we took all the cloth down and went on strike. In the cabin, now baking in the heat of the day, I fall in and out of a shallow sleep, my dreams filled with anxiety. Will we have enough water to last the trip? They announce rain further up, just as long as we make it, we can collect it in the bimini. If we see a ship should we ask it to relay a message so no-one thinks we're missing at sea? If they throw us a jerrican of water will it float and, if it won't, how best to get hold of it? We have started 'rationing' fresh water - only to be used for drinking and cooking. All washing is done in saltwater. Annoying as it makes everything feel sticky and gives the cutlery rust spots. As for myself, I'd rather be dirty than itching with salt crystals.
In the late afternoon, some wildlife. A colony of petrels bob along with us several boat lengths away. They are European Storm-Petrels I think, although they look very like several other sub-species: dainty, with a cinder coloured sweep across their wings and a white rump. I thought it could be a Leach's Storm Petrel but the book says that they 'do not follow ships'. Ever since our second day out from the Cape Verdes we've been joined every now and then by a Petrel as well as a White Tailed Tropic Bird (unmistakeable with its tail that makes it look like it's got an unfortunate rod up its jacksie). I haven't seen either since we became becalmed. They must be long gone.
Also this evening: polyps (jellyfish to you and me). All at once the sea's soupy surface is interrupted by little blue balloons, complete with a pink rim and shaped like a pasty. I try to catch one in a bucket but miss - thankfully because I have just identified it as a Portuguese Man of War 'which can have coiled stinging tentacles up to 10m+'. The balloon and its colourful trim act as a sail, enabling it to use both wind and current to propel itself.
The cruel boy scout of a breeze obviously tired of playing with us and moved on to taunt someone else. At about midnight, the real wind returned. Thank the gods! Impulse is chewing through the miles again. Immediately our scowls are gone and the outlook is positive. How easily we are affected by the vaguaries of the ocean! With the screecher up we are reaching on a Southeasterly 3 or so. We are not lost at sea, we are coming home! I am sorry that you worry. There is nothing I can do, two thousand miles away, but send a message on the wind (now returned). 'We are safe, we are safe. Have faith.'
We are flying North on the very breath of the universe, the swell pumping like blood through my veins. Beside me, a wavelet bursts with an effervescent chuckle, taking me by suprise. Little devil - and I thought you were a whale!
Night falls - The wind has decreased and veered West. Mild panic rises. Gloomily we study the chart and weather forecast one more time. Where will the depression go? How far South? Which tack should we choose? Both are rubbish - slow and off the rhumb line. Now look - this one will take us to the band of wind. If it comes. Yes but this one points to all the comforts of Madeira (it looks closer but is in fact the same distance from the Azores, and for that matter the Canaries). If the Westerly doesn't come we should head East - but North Easterlies are forecast for the Canaries sector which would head us off at the pass. But Westerlies are forecast. They are coming. Have faith.