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El Mundo - Friday 7th December



One of the great joys of being at sea in the middle of the ocean is the air
is soooooooooo clean!!!!!! One just wants to take great gulpfuls of the
stuff. It just makes one feel SO WELL!!!

Another day, another bit of ocean. We have motored clear of the area of no
wind and at about midnight last night found a F3/4 going in the right
direction. First light we had the cruising chute up for the first time this
trip. For the non-sailors the cruising chute is a HUUUUGE sail that
replaces the foresail at the front of the boat. Ours is massive and drives
us through the water like a battering ram. The sail is attached at the
mast, at the bow, and back to a winch near the cockpit towards the stern.
The feeling is a bit like being on a very powerful roller-coaster - there is
a delicious sense of excitement sailing on what feels like the very edge
between maintaining control and a bit of a mess-up. Anyway, there we were
zooooooooming along at 9-10 knots which is pretty fast for us; coffee and
elevenses had just be served when there was the most almightly BANG! and our
beautiful cruising chute had transformed itself into a giant flag flying
from the masthead. The piece of string attaching one corner of the sail to
the bow had snapped - and it's a pretty big piece of string! Now the
interesting thing is had this happened two or three days into our trip, with
two crew unfamiliar with the boat, then there would have in all likelihood
been mild panic and hysteria - from myself if not anyone else. But people
just put down their coffee cups, wandered up to the front of the boat and
within five minutes the cruising chute was back in its bag; and within
another ten the pole was set, yankee was poled out, and staysail set.
People then wandered back to the cockpit and finished drinking their (still
warm) coffee with an almost 'as I was saying before I was so rudely
interrupted' demeanour. VERY VERY impressive. Of course throughout all this
ice-man Nick was barking instructions but I still think huge credit goes to
Robert and Dee who two weeks ago had never set foot on the boat, and had
never embarked on an ocean trip of this duration.

I an afraid I am NOT going to be backward in singing the praises of the
crew. I make no apologies for doing so. Throughout this whole trip - and
some of it has been pretty challenging - they have been tremendous.

Bad news. My patented fishing system so far has been unsuccessful. I am
beginning to feel a loss of confidence from the crew. Various references to
frozen salmon in the freezer being so much easier to catch don't help. I
shall press on regardless and prove them wrong.

Otherwise all is well. We have around 820 miles to run and people are
beginning to guesstimate when we might arrive at St Lucia - right now
computer says 95 hours which makes it some time around late Tuesday/early
Wednesday next. I remain cautious because I know we are not there until we
are there, but the forecast is good showing a F5/6 from astern all the way
home.

Now here is the El Mundo brain-teaser for today.

Question number 9 (or is it 8?)

In a cage of parrots, each of the parrots can see an equal number of female
and male parrots, but each male parrot sees twice as many females as male
parrots. How many parrots are there in total?

E-mail your answer to this and all the other brain-teasers marked for
Jonathan's attention at [email protected]. There will be another three
to four brain-teasers so hold-off until we close the competition on arrival
at St Lucia. A bottle of (very good) champagne with my compliments to the
individual who gets the most correct asnwers.

Have fun. As always our love to all those to matter to Jonathan, Dee,
Robert and Nick ashore.

This is yacht El Mundo. Ovvvvvveeeeeerrrrrrr aaaannnnnddddd out!






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