For the past two days we’ve been sitting in a doldrum that got worse and worse until it was nothing but a dead calm. The doldrums can easily drop your mood to despair. It can make you feel the loneliness of the ocean in full force. Keeping watch is a frustration as the time slowly ticks ticks ticks ticks for an eternity before it passes at all. No wind. No movement. No progress. The doldrums.

This morning I woke up for my 0800 watch thinking in my head “Wind Wind Wind Please.” But I could feel right away as I was lying awake that we weren’t moving. I went to the wheel to keep the bow pointing east because we actually were moving - about 1/2 knot or less – and the bow has to keep its direction. I watched the smooth water swelling with very light motion, like a chest that is sleeping, and I tried so hard not to think about time.

I watch the compass, and the bow of the boat bobbing lazily up and down. I watch the compass direction turning slowly and maddeningly, passing East toward North-East, and I turn the wheel to compensate. But nothing happens. I turn the wheel all the way, and nothing happens. And then, slowly, the ocean registers the rudder and torturously slowly the compass direction turns away from North-East, back toward East. I quickly spin the wheel, guessing at center, but the compass still turns, the bow still maddeningly bobbing its way beyond East to the other direction, and now I am turning that wheel opposite, trying desperately to compensate and hold that steady East. That damn elusive East. My entire watch is like that, bobbing back and forth past that damn elusive East.

Then I saw a ship in the distance, a big cargo ship, and as it got closer Yurich tried to raise it on the radio. We made contact and it turned out the captain was Polish so they got to talking happily for several minutes and I was dying to find out what was being said about the weather. When finally I got the translation I learned from the cargo ship’s weather report that we’d not have wind for 2 or 3 days. OH NO! And there was South Wind at Gibralter. My heart sank.

I was alone on deck holding the wheel. The cargo ship was disappearing behind us and I felt a breeze on my head. Could it be real? It seemed to stay, and I froze, and in my mind I was saying, “Come on baby. Stay with us baby.” Andre put his head up through the hatch and though he must have felt the breeze he must have also been so used to disappointment that it didn’t register to him, and he looked dejected and he said, “Oh well.” I said, “Don’t scare it away.” But I don’t think he knew what I meant and he went back down below. I said in my mind over and over, “Stay with us baby. Stay with us baby.” Oh wind. Oh beautiful wind, I pray to you - Stay with us - take us all the way to Ceuta.

Wind has stayed with us now so far so steady, and it has been a good hour. Oh I hope to you wind, bless us with your continued presence.

Click here for the entire adventure so far…