Days 303 to 305: 13th to 15th Apil 2018 - Weathering the storm!

Friday 13th April

Today was a really good school day. As well as the usual Maths and English (today in the form of history) the kids inputted their data from the rubber band car experiment into excel and created a distance time graph which was all new to them. AJ also made a lovely lunch of thai butternut squash soup.

In the afternoon I went and spent an hour our so on Artemis with Anne and Allen brushing up my astro navigation skills whilst Patrick tided the deck ready for the storm due on Saturday. It's amazing how much you forget! It's 13 years since I last used celestial navigation to navigate across the Atlantic and it seems both like only yesterday, and also a lifetime ago all at once.

Evening was probably the kids last "Vesna night" with a somewhat depleted crew however they had a lovely time as did we at our last "Stella Marina Bar Happy Hour". This time next week we should be in Malta.

Saturday 14th April

Having got to bed about midnight I was woken at about 4:30am by the storm. We'd put extra lines on our stern and also an extra line to our midship cleat but this was a little tight and was snatching (the stern lines have rubber snubbers to ease both the motion and the shock loads on the cleats). Patrick took a look and we discussed it a while but decided it was better to leave it. I didn't really get back to sleep and in the morning we could see masts at every angle in the marina. I took some photos but they really don't convey how wild it was, the only clue being the angle of the masts. At this point the wind was gusting up to about 40 knots. Lotty had booked the big meeting room for the day and the plan was to take picnics and spend the day their off the boats. It was pretty nerve wracking actually getting off Laurin, and with the passerelle swinging around wildly we had to time our exit well. Very soon pretty much all the kid boat crews were together in the meeting room and playing.

Some of the Dads opted to stay on their boat and others, like Patrick, popped back to check every hour or so. On one of these journeys he reported back that our solar panel had managed to slide out of its envelope on the sprayhood and he'd found it on the side deck, a little bashed round the corners but otherwise looking not too bad.

Meanwhile the wind was building (I think somebody said nearly 60knots) and the kids were starting to get a little bored. They needed to let of some steam so we organised some energetic games. AJ and Esmé enjoyed helping to build an obstacle course for the little kids like the ones we used to build at home before they were old enough to be at school all day. The afternoon drew on and the wind still showed no signs of dropping. One of the cleats on M-dock came away from the pontoon and it took 6 guys to sort out that mess. The guys were stressed with keeping an eye on the boats, and the Mums with containing 12 kids in a room for the majority of the day.

In the end we decided to walk into town for dinner and hopefully wear the kids out. It was a tough walk with the wind against us and blowing sand into our faces. The waiter in the restaurant took one look at us and brought the adults Prosecco! We enjoyed a lovely meal, despite having to contain 7 fractious kids, but then had to brave the journey back which actually was a lot easier with the wind behind us. The kids doubled up on scooters and everything seemed to be going ok until we got back and found we were one kid short! One of the down sides  of having multiple families together is that although you all take care of each others kids, it is also possible to assume your kid is with one of the other adults when they're not. Thankfully a 5 minute search found the missing child and all was well again. A quick tidy up and regroup in the meeting room and then we all headed back to our boats. It was nice to be on board again and thankfully the wind had dropped a little and the motion had improved although it was still forecast to be gusting up to 40 knots until midnight.

Sunday 15th April

It was wonderful to wake up to a calm morning, although the boat looked like a bomb site! I got up and started to slowly put Laurin to rights, putting the solar panel back in its slot and turning off the shore power so that we could check if it was working in an hour or so when the batteries had chance to loose a little charge. Once we could actually see the main cabin we all (even Esmé!) had a cooked breakfast and the kids disappeared off to play while Patrick and I made a list of jobs that st. Patrick and I did a few more jobs before AJ realised that all the others had gone to the town square while he was having some "alone time" and so I took  him to the beach for an ice cream and a swim where we were soon met by Esmé!