The night at sea, very cloudy and lots of showers, some very heavy.
Watches: 21.00 / 01.00 Donal
01.00 / 05.00 Stephen
05.00 / 09.00 Aileen
Looking at the radar and watching all the clouds building and tracking them to see if they are going to piddle down on
us is fascinating. Its like looking down on top of the world with all the yellow patches moving slowly across the screen.
Then there is, or is not a mad rush to shut all the hatches and windows, depending.
07.30 hrs (our time locally, 11 hours behind Ireland) We get at half time that Munster are trailing Northampton, 13/16. Ohhhh, noooo!
08.30hrs (our time) ............................................We get a call to say that Munster defeated Northampton, 33/19 Ohhhh, thats better!
The wind begins to build and the sun pushes all those nasty clouds off to some other planet, and all in all, things are looking up big time. We have only 150 miles to go. The wind is blowing 20 knots and we are sailing merrily along in relatively flat conditions at 8 knots...... No more engine for a while.
Its a funny thing, when we were sailing last year (July) from Bayona in Spain to the Azores, a distance of 802 miles and 5 nights at sea, Dermod Lovett said "this is the first time I have been at sea for 5 consecutive nights" and it turned out that the whole crew were in the same boat ( except Ann Lyons, who had completed a 10 night journey previously) and we are all experienced sailors... Now we think 3 nights or 5 nights at sea is a short hop. How things can change...
The skipper is still reading the ICC annual and was interested in Edi Keatings account of their cruise with Len and Mary Curtin in the Ionian Islands last year, and how short hops are the thing. The skipper was always of that mind too, nothing like going ashore at night for a meal, or just a few pints, and sailing by day... yes yes.
But cruising around the world is equally fascinating, and the meals and pints ashore after 3, 5, 10, or 16 days at sea taste much, much better. Plus most of the Islands do not speak english either and sign language becomes a very important means of communication.
One of the draw backs of the pacific, and most likely the only crib, is most harbors have swells, so anchoring in flat water (so far) is something we are not getting, not withstanding that, the next places are Atoll's, and should be calm... great for swimming, even if it is with sharks.
18.00hrs Fat's is doing the dinner. The skipper's chicken pie and more veg and gravey, yum, yum! An early night and hopefully have land fall tomorrow morning early. It gets bright here around 04.45 hrs and sudden dusk at 18.00hrs
Thats it for now,
Stephen Hyde (skipper)