Cleone - Leg 15 Day 5 - Some, but not much, Wind

I nearly left the title unchanged again.

 

We have actually managed to sail for the majority of the last 24 hours, but as I type, the engine is back on as the wind blows at a miserly 5 knots or so from behind us.  Our total mileage for the day, at 123 miles, gave us an average speed of a fraction over 5 knots, but this was very hard-won.  We used the Ghoster throughout much of the afternoon and night, and initially this gave us over 7 knots of boat-speed.  Since we were, unusually, un-hindered by a counter-current, these few hours gave our average a much needed boost.  But sadly the wind softened (as Bruce put it in his ever-accurate forecast) and even with the Ghoster we were only able to sail at about five knots.  And by dawn this had diminished to a steady three, so we bowed to the inevitable and took the sails down.  We've already burned nearly 200 litres of fuel, which is considerably more than we used crossing the Atlantic.  Meanwhile, the rest of the fleet report generally slightly stronger winds, but only those near Bali anyway have anything very encouraging.

 

The crew continue to get browner - at least those recently arrived do.  The Skipper's meal was eaten in near silence, but to be fair to him, the mince and rice was at least edible.  We're happy that Alex is duty chef tonight.  Norfy is asleep, but presumed to be well, and Alex is pondering Life after Bloomberg in happy, sunny, isolation in the cockpit.