Ronan O'Driscoll

Today is a very different day to yesterday . It is overcast and there is no wind. From the early morning the sea swell has been gradually increasing and the conditions are rolly. This is a day that just has to be endured. Ruby and Colm feel seasick. Ronan and I are tired after several shifts of night watch. The rolling prevents anyone from getting proper sleep and never allows the children to forget their queasy tummies for too long. We get some distraction from ‘eye spy’ which is made very challenging when the item spied must be outside the boat. We are in a great big fishbowl with only sea and sky and yet there was plenty of spying to be done.
Colm does some great helming before dinner.
We go through two traffic separation schemes around the Scillies during day light without much to report. The larger Ushant Traffic Separation Zone is much busier and we are crossing it diagonally at night time.The north going lane is full of ships with one following quickly behind another so it is hard to find a gap long enough to cross. Ronan and I go on watch together and pick the best spot to cross at, which meant travelling down through
the dead zone for a few miles.
The AIS is incredibly useful as it gives all the details of each ship including the speed they are travelling at and how soon and how close you will come to it. We were going to come very close to one ship Torpo. Ronan made contact and Torpo agreed that we would pass in front of him. It is an exciting and nerve wracking experience and when we are safely out of the TSS Ronan is delighted to turn in after nearly 6 hours on watch.Leggi altro