Ahhhhhh! I realize it’s 3am, but this is the kind of night you dream about — well, that I dream about — as a sailor. I went topside at 11:30pm, half an hour before our midnight watch, to see what the weather was like, figure out which clothes I would need for the midnight watch, and find out why we were still on a starboard tack headed southeast. Emerging from the hatch, I was greeted by a cloudless sky filled…
And of course, since the trip is almost over, the sailing conditions are now spectacular. We left Lerwick this morning amid a nice westerly breeze. The island being to our west, that meant that the wind was moving us along nicely but the seas remained calm. And move along nicely we did: we were over 10 knots for a good chunk of the run south along Mainland Shetland, as it’s known. Now we’re out from under the southern tip of…
Sitting aboard Polar Bear in the tidal River Tyne, about a mile so upstream from the North Sea. Yesterday we brought the boat through the lock separating the marina from the river and did final preparations; last night two guests arrived from London; and around midday today we’ll put to sea, turn left and head north to the Shetland Islands. I’m quite looking forward to hitting the road, so to speak. It’s been a fun if disjointed week here in…