Afternoon!
Well, I can tell you, it is all going on here aboard the
mighty Incisor. We are currently just passing the southernmost island of the
Cape Verdes ( which is absolutely incredible!) and as we write our blog
tomorrow we will hopefully be taking the plunge and heading west. It’s a
beautiful day today, only our second day of real sunshine but this comes with a
sacrifice as there is only 4knts of wind – you win some you lose some,
but we are still plodding on and keeping the boat moving. It’s difficult
to chat as the boom is flopping so much but the wind will be filling in soon. Last
night and this morning were very eventful. In the pitch black night (and we
mean pitch black) we have had a few visitors. Firstly there were dolphins, and
because of the pitch black night they were only made visible by the phosphorescent
which outlined them as the speed along like torpedoes, it truly is one of the
most amazing sights. After the dolphins left we had an attack of flying fish,
one flying straight into Ingrid’s legs and the second flying into a winch
and then onto my back. They first one was rescued swiftly by Rich who has had a
lot of experience with flying fish – you don’t do 16 transatlantics
and not come into contact with any! The second however, was attempted to be
rescued by Alex but was too scared to pick it up so Katharine had to come to
his rescue and throw him back into the sea. To be fair, he was flapping around
a lot and as you all know, fish are slippery little suckers! We have also seen
many sea birds and this morning whilst going through the islands we have seen
an Egret. Moving on from wildlife and onto the actual sailing – in the
early hours of the morning the wind started to build and we were reaching along
nicely but as we entered the channel through the islands, the wind started to
funnel through and picked up to 25-27knts. To redeem Alex of being a scardy cat
he did manage to beat Katharine’s speed record and reached 17.5knts! It
was all very exciting and we thought it was very fast, until the famous Derek
Saunders got on the helm and easily got to 21.6knts! There was a lot of cheering!
We then decided that we should take butch down because Derek didn’t want anyone
beating his record (the perks of having skippers decisions!) As soon as we got
butch down within an hour the wind died and 7knts and here we are now at 4knts.
Everyone is feeling a lot more awake today – yesterday
was tough and everyone was a bit lethargic, but the pace has picked up and everyone
is in a good spirits. I think it was the delicious curry Sandra,
Frans and Mark had cooked for us during the night. I know
everyone says food tastes better at sea, but I would have paid good money for
that at any restaurant!
To make the dark night go a little quicker we have
been playing Alex’s Black Stories which are murder mysteries. He gives
you 4 or 5 clues and you have to guess how the person died with only yes/no
questions. It was very very amusing with the scenarios we came up with. I think
being at sea for 7days has got to us!
We are all very much in a routine, where at night when you wake up the next
watch you stick the kettle on and during the watch you have 20mins on steering
so you don’t lose concentration and it makes the time go a lot quicker.
So far my favourite person to wake me up is Mark as he is always so happy and
likes to give a full progress report before you come up on deck. He also likes
to tell you it’s Mark as if we didn’t know which makes me laugh. It
was exciting being able to see land as we didn’t think on a transatlantic
we would, a nice surprise from just blue.
Well I must go and prepare lunch for everyone...we are
having cheese, crackers, pineapple chunks and crisps. Katharine has just
described it as a 70’s dinner party on board!
Until tomorrow all, Incisor