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El Mundo - 09/12 - Relationships All At Sea



We have packed the kite ready to hoist if we get any light airs, either to use or just to be able to refurl on the torsion cable. Also, we have a small fresh water leak into the bilge and spent a couple of hours trying to trace it yesterday afternooon, without success but finally located it first thing this morning....a faulty high pressure release valve on the hot water tank. So now trying to clean it and then to replace the 500 litres of water that disappeared from our fresh water tank overnight.
Caught one more Dorado (14th) on the remaining rod yesterday but the weed is still bad so it was good that we caught anything at all.
Dinner was fillet steak in a green peppercorn source with french fries and a tomato salad. This is the last of the salad but plenty of apples, oranges, cucumber and onions left....with, most probably, 2 nights at sea until we make land. More seriously....we've run out of cake!
Today is the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox in 1979, the only disease driven to extinction by human endeavours.It's also National Hero's Day in Antigua (formerly V.C. Bird Day...why would you have a holiday for an airport?!) and it's Dame Judi Dench's 80th birthday.
And a note from our Home Affairs Correspondent....
 
Relationships All At SEA:
Sailing across the Atlantic, with your husband as skipper of the yacht, I have found puts your marital status on the back burner and you become 'crew'. It is not, I would imagine, to everyone's taste but then neither is sailing 2800 miles across an ocean! Mervyn recently received a mug embossed with "Nothing works on an old boat except the skipper" and that would aptly summarise Mervyn's experience with the invaluable assistance of first mate Bob. There is always a lot to do to keep 'El Mundo' moving and all her many systems functioning. I was never going to be an Ellen MacArthur or Dee Caffrey and would count myself as the most dizzy, least sailing savvy of the crew but I can provision a yacht for three weeks, cook in a rolling sea and, due to my compulsive nature, make a fair job of keeping the boat clean, doing rig checks and many other chores, ably assisted by Lincy. So there is a distinct, unspoken, division of labour. Then there is the watch system, which ensures that half the night you are in diffent places and the remainder is spent in exhausted, fitful sleep separated by lee-cloths. However, there are still romantic moments, with moonlit nights, galaxies of stars, phosphorescence in the surf, sunrises, sunsets and lots of beautiful sunny days...you just have to ensure that you take time out to enjoy them together. You also know that the memories will be lasting and discussed over that candlelit dinner in St Lucia where your relationship gets back on solid ground.....and you will NOT have to check your watch to see whether a log reading is due!


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