As the Skipper and the Gnist is without internet access, due to a mini-USB incident with the Iridium modem, please excuse my humble attempt to derive all of us Lovinda-blog-readers from collective withdrawal symptoms, by authoring this post.
Meanwhile, Lovinda Too are reporting “pos 4.mar 12utc: 7.54n/45.17w plenty wind 20 t 30kn all time. poor speed 5.5kn. curr against us 1 t 2kn. 51 nm north of rumbline. 994 nm to mart.”
Short, informative SMS’s every two days, with position and situation report onboard. All good. I always forward the position to dad’s wise and long-trusted friend, Mr.Paul Caldwell, who rapidly responds with advise of the weather forecast, expected current or just an uplifting comment, you know from one skipper to another. My dad responds;
«paul. you must be clair voyante. the current against us left us about 2 pm utc. hopefully we will get some current with us soon. thanks for updates»
Meanwhile Paul and his Janet, enjoys the cold and beauty of Winter 2018.
So, in between my efforts of being an old-fashioned radio-operator, I punch in the Lovinda position on Google Maps and for a moment enjoy the look of her voyage getting closer to us. 994 nm divided by 120 nm a day means they will be berthing somewhere in 8 days from now. My sister and family is planning to vacate in the Caribbean for 2 weeks. My jealousy is not a secret, but I just couldn’t do the work of taking all 4 over there alone, as Mr. Døving’s offshore schedule did not favour us this year.
Mum called me from the Iridium on Saturday, well I’ve known her for 40 years now, and no doubt in her voice she called due to a familiar homesickness that caught her in the middle of the Pacific also, of course disguised with questions like ‘what are you up to?’ and ‘do you have any new knitting projects for me?’ At the time, I was busy of course, cheering my oldest two in a brass band contest in the Stavanger Hall of Concert, but my heart was instantly filled with love from my mom. Somewhere out there, missing her babies.
Photos below from winter moments in HAUGESUND.
Jordomseiling 2014-18 