Saturday 18 August: Gloucester, hibernate during rainstorm.
Sunshine! What happened to the strong wind and the rain storm? It did rain throughout the night, but now it’s all calm and clear. Nice breakfast in the cockpit, basking in the warm sun. Are we really south enough now, to have such warm mornings every day again? We hope so.
And we wonder whether we overreacted to seek shelter this weekend. Predictwind now shows rain at midday, and wind in the evening. Hm, not enough time to go ashore before rain starts. So we keep busy onboard, calling family: Glen to son Alex in London and Oana to parents in Bucharest.
Glen tackles the guests head, cleaning the sea water toilet filter. It had collected a bit of debris and was smelling quite fishy (H2S) when we flush it. At the same time we discover mildew and mold around the bathroom, so a thorough clean with a light bleach solution is needed. We realize now how fortunate we were to buy a yacht that had spent its whole life in a dry climate (Lanzarote). We have been just one month in this damp cool climate and there is dampness and mildew appearing on everything! Horrible.
When we next poke our heads outside, the sky is dark and threatening. Very heavy rain starts soon after that, and we revert to more hibernating in the saloon with the heater on. We pack the Raymarine screen in a box ready to send for repair, then edit the Charleston to New York video for several hours, completing it by 11pm while a cold northerly wind whistles in the rigging outside. Finally we feel we are catching up on our video editing.
Gloucester video on Sail Cloudy Bay YouTube channel