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Andromeda of Plymouth - Raindrops keep fallig on my sparayhood but after all We are Cruising........



N37:39:107 W40:42:776
 
GPS Miles to go 573.3
 
Boat miles travelled 1251
 
Don't be misled by the title today, it's actually not raining at the moment, and for that we are thankful.  We were just musing on what lessons and ideas you pick up through your life and how you can never tell what may come in handy later on. For instance when I (Susan) went to Derbyshire in 1973/4 (not sure which year it was) to see Rod Stewart headline at Buxton, little did I dream that the sight that greeted me as I arrived,  would, these many years later, prove valuable.  Having driven from Hampshire to Derbyshire, I arrived for the weekend festival in the pouring rain and once tent etc was sorted, off I went to explore.  This was my first ever festival and I was curious and the first curiosity was that there was a steady trade in huge plastic bags and brollies.  Not surprising the brollies, but the bags? Then I arrived in the arena and all became clear, the space was littered with people sitting inside the plastic bags, brollies over their heads enjoying(?) (well we were young then) the current offering from the stage. 
 
Fast forward 40 years and there we were in our cockpit at the height of the bad weather, having got soaked on numerous occasions, sitting inside the huge plastic bags that I had on board for storing anything too big for a bin bag.  These were huge, you could get a sleeping bag in and then some, and were ideal to use to keep the worst of the weather off whilst watching out for hazards etc.  No way we could have heard Rod Stewart though, even if he had been on board in the saloon  belting out 'Maggie' at the time......
 
I also learnt the delight of the one pot meal at festivals, when you have only a tiny gas canister cooker and one pot and a kettle you are very inventive and it has stood in good stead over the years, especially for camping and boating. And then there is identifying where your tent/ group of people are. You make a flag. This proves very useful at a very busy festival site and these days maybe you can spot your self on the TV as well. Andrew and I made one for our first trip to Reading Festival together even though there were only 3 of us in our party...ahhh ...youth.
 
We got a bit caught out by the continuous bad weather. We thought we were covered.  After all we had sailed from the UK, renowned for its weather, and we were sailing ont he south coast, across the channel and down south so you are prepared for the wet and cold.  We had lovely wet weather gear, only used for one season and practically brand new sea boots.  We have got the clothing out os storage each year mainly on standby for any overnight passages we did but especially the one between St. Vincent and St. Lucia which is notorious for weather too, and having been soaked to the skin there once were always ready there after.
 
Unfortunately what we did not realise was that our clothing seemed to have shelf life, so although we may have used it once a season the past 3 years, and aired it thoroughly before storing it, the water proofing properties have degraded alarmingly and to our chagrin we were getting soaked with the gear on.  It still keeps you warm but dry? no way.  Susan was lucky as we had on board a set of oilies bought for daughter Jenny that had only been worn about 3 times and they worked fine. Andrew however was reduced to the jacket given to us by Susan's Dad 5 years ago and that seemed to work well first of all but is now starting to fall apart. Quite how that can be when that hasn't been out of the storage area other than for airing ever.  We have light weather gear for ashore and that  has been pressed into service too but obviously we didn't feel we had a need for any other standbys...thank good ness for plastic bags. And as for those boots, mine were ok but Andrew couldn't get his on, his feet unconstrained by proper shoes all this time have obviously grown wider.
 
Now back to today, well the wind has filled in and we are beetling along nicely, and have now passed the 2/3rd mark so less that 1/3rd to go to Horta. We have also changed our clocks again and shipboard time is now UTC -1, so are now only 2 hours behind the UK time. We had a visit from a huge pod of dolphins this morning who swam and dived around Andromeda and across her bow wave before heading on their way and have seen two jets over head, the first we have noticed so far.
 
On a completely random note....I bought some generic ibroprofen in Trinidad which has come in handy with the bruises sustained by us both, the interesting thing is the colour of the tablets....I shall leave it to your imaginations for fill in the blank.
 
More in due course
Andrew & Susan, aka The Peeps and the.........People
S/V Andromeda of Plymouth, aka Dances with Waves (as she is doing at thtis moment)


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