Greetings from yacht Ensemble.
We are now just 270nm from Suwarrow - more than half way - and should be arriving on Monday morning.
The winds are slight at 8 - 10 knots from the E / SE and the seas calm (<1m swell) - so very cruisy sailing downwind with the Parasailor. About half the fleet seems to be using Parasailors in preference to the more traditional spinnakers - and about half that number (including ourselves) has dropped the Parasailor in the water due to failure in the halyard - either from chafe (or in our case) were the metal u-bolt holding fixing the block has worn through. To address this we are using dynema shackles - hoping the rope against metal will result in less wear.
We are also very mindful of were wind speeds can suddenly jump up 20 or 30 knots and blow the sail out. To date (touch wood) we have been fortunate. None the less - yesterday we saw a massive and dramatic looking squall heading our way (see Magali watching pensively) - and went through our practice routine on how to douse the sail in a hurry if we need to.
We had our first success with the fishing lines yesterday - and it proves that squid are cannibals. My 4 inch squid lure caught an 8 inch squid (or was he trying to mate?). Calamari for dinner (hopefully I won't het the
lure)...
Speaking of cooking - Magali made more bread and banana bread - and to use up the extra bananas we had banana smoothies in the afternoon (it is so hot). Dinner was home made cheeseburgers and salad - all very healthy!
Hopefully today the wind will pick up and we'll start seeing those legendary trade winds....
Cheers
Dave & Magali
19May2012 024