We arrived in Limassol in Cyprus at 0345 this am after a hard slog from Egypt.

We had an uneventful transit of the second half of the canal, and after dropping our pilot off at Port Said, (again a helpful, courteous man), we headed off into the Med, assuming all our travails and woes were behind us.We was wrong! The wind steadily built up to the upper 20's, from the NNE (where we were headed), and large rollers with breaking crests began to form, and before too long Hygeia was a submarine, as large breaking waves crashed over the bows, and gurgled and foamed along the decks, before running off over the transom. Unusually, some breaking waves found their way into the cockpit, and before too long, despite wearing oilies, for the first time in years, we were soaked and chilled.

Conditions steadily deteriorated, as the wind built to 30, and the seas were so bad that even with our powerful engine we could not make more than 2 kn towards our destination, and to motor sail we couldn't do better than 45 degrees to the wind. It was grim, and the worst conditions we've had since Colombia 3 years ago. Hygeia was rolling so badly that bits of gear like the radio-casette, the printer and computer fell out, something that has never happened before. By midnight we were wet, cold, seasick (KR) and truth be told, a little bit scared (both of us!) It stayed like this for about 15 hours, and only improved a bit by late afternoon on Wednesday, continuing bad till we found shelter in Akrotiri Bay in the early hours of Thursday morning and were able to enter this marina.

We had an unusual experience yesterday afternoon. As we were crashing our way into the seas, heavily reefed, we identified what turned out to be a tanker, on a collision course with us. When he was about two miles away, and we were deciding which way to turn, a voice came over Channel 16 saying "Don't worry, captain, hold your course, and I'll turn 30 degrees to starboard instead", and in front of our astonished eyes, 250,000 tons of middle-East crude did a skid turn to stbd, and passed safely down our port side. What a gent: presumably a yachtie!

I had already booked a berth in a marina via Iridium, and we found our way safely there to the almost unimaginable joy of being dry, warm, still and safe in bed! So we're fine again, but staying put until we get some better weather.

Home | Top | < previous | next >