Plymouth, UK to Oostende, BE

 

Underway from Plymouth UK to Oostende, BE. Hurrying to get in before anticipated bad weather. Sunset underway and a moonlit night.

My view from the helm. Nothin' but blue ...

 If you zoom in you just might be able to see the legendary white cliffs. (My tired brain insisted on making that a glacier but we’re not in Iceland anymore!)

Adventures aren’t all pony rides in the May sunshine, as Bilbo Baggins reminds us. So in the name of keepin’ it real, here’s the rest of our passage report: we bashed into seas for 16 hours with chilly winds in our faces. I held onto the wheel as much to keep my balance as to keep the ship on course. Staggered around the moving deck like we were drunk, or at least a good imitation thereof. There was so much salt spray that I had to lick my glasses clean every half hour or they fogged up so badly I couldn’t read the compass. My phone switched to the new time zone (we’re now east longitude having crossed the prime meridian) so I woke up an hour early for watch, losing an hour of sleep I could have sorely used. OTOH, I could have had a job staring at a computer screen in a gray walled cubicle, instead of helmsman on a “pirate” ship, and shortly after I posted this a Dutch friend texted me "welcome to mainland Europe." Yeah, my life is pretty darn wonderful!