Letter No 4 sent on 1 Aug 2001 14:35
An SMS-message from Mahina arrived last Tuesday night to my mobile phone:

“All fine. Anchored. Motored in 30 kts headwind 20 sm”

Now some interpretation with a bit fantasy has to take over! How are they? “Fine” is the answer. Well, sounds encouraging, right? The next word, “Anchored”, sounds as if they have arrived safely (but where?). It seems as if they will sleep at anchor this first night. Sounds cosy. With the heater on, a good meal around the table with the gale blowing outside, telling stories for each other, e.g. exchanging the reasons for participating at this expedition.

“30 kts headwind”, well here you really can feel the salty touch of Karolina. Already counting in knots! These are the real blue water sailors! Who counts in meters per second or in Beaufort or even “Windstärken”? This is something for Sunday sailors and hobby yachties. Salties count in knots! The “20 seamiles” sound more like short engine run, while 20 sm is a normal long days cruise for our family and almost the distance Ystad – Bornholm!

More news came along:

Early this morning I was woken up by another “biip-biiip” from my mobile phone. Another short message: “Please Mail Weather”.

You should have seen me jumping out of my bed! “Jessica and Jonathan! Wake up! You have to get your own breakfast today, I have important things to do!!!… Mahina is calling me! They need some meteorological advice! I will be their personal weather consultant! They rely on me! I am with them! Hurry up!“

I was jumping around while I switched on the computer and could not wait until the Internet was running. Here, on DNMI’s homepage, I could get the newest weather forecast. Come on! Get these bits and bites over the Internet to me….. Ah, here it is! Now what do they say? Lets see… – “Westerly gale 8, tonight periods of severe gale 9. Showers of rain, with moderate or poor visibility”.

Oh, dear…. Well, well. Maybe I never received this SMS and should go and get the children and myself some breakfast instead….? Hmmm, I’d better tell the truth. Maybe I can look at the coastal weather instead? Maybe they stay inshore today? But this was not much better: “Westerly near gale force 7, tonight gale force 8 at exposed places, severe gale force 9 in northern part, Wednesday veering northwesterly. Rain. Moderat to poor visibility”.

Anyway I sent of the SMS via E-mail on my computer and went back to the breakfast table.

I packed the Swimming bag with clothes for the children and off we drove to Karolina’s mother Monika, who took them to swimming school today (while I am in the office). After swim school they came back again – with some problems. I had forgotten to pack a T-shirt for Jessica and the pullover I actually did pack was dirty… There seems to be some room for improvement regarding my role as father. Well, you can’t think of everything these days and I think I’ll have to start the washing machine tonight. Karolina usually washes every day, which I thought was to exaggerate, but the pile is growing and the children are having dirty clothes. At least Jonathan said I was more “playful” and “funny” than their Mom, so at least the children find some positive character in me.

Before sending this off, I just got a new SMS from Karolina with their newest position, which is N 69 13,90 E 017 56,90 at 10:30 UTC


Next E-mail
"As we have approximately 1,300 miles to cover in 16 days, we got underway after lunch and initial safety orientation, motorsailing to Hestoy, 23 miles south in driving rain with head winds gusting to 31 kts."
Capt John Neal
"You would think that August 1st would have brought summer weather, but it didn't and we endured winter rains with gusts to 40 kts. At one point a fierce squall piled enough hailstones along the aft deck to make snowballs. Dalton, being a skier from Colorado naturally brought his ski goggles which were in hot demand from the helmsperson as looking to windward into 30-40 kt wind driven hail felt like having one's face sandblasted!"
Capt John Neal