Sunday 30th November 2014
It was all looking so promising, charging along at 8-9
knots ever since we left Las Palmas. That all changed last night when we seemed
to enter a vacuum. The sails flogged and sea flopped us from side to side.
Because it was night and everyone needs their sleep, rather than make any
drastic changes to the sail plan, we furled the genoa and motored with the
engine in search of wind. By 03:00 the wind had returned and we were sailing
again in 10 knots of wind on a beam reach heading approximately 270 degrees; a
rhum line for our final destination. There was purpose again to our venture.
Ever since then, a pattern has emerged of wind steadily building and then dying,
interrupted by the occasional small squall of no more than 20 knots. Currently
we are bobbing along at 8 knots in NE F4; we decided to ring the changes with
the ‘code zero’ which is a lovely sail and can be used on a close
reach.
Because of the lighter winds, Alastair and I have
diversified our range of normal duties. Alastair has embraced the title ‘ship’s
chef’ and has excelled today by not only cooking the banana bread (in the oven
as we speak) but is also cooking fish and chips in the oven to make best use of
our limited supply of butane. I have washed tea towels (which were particularly
skanky) and (separately!) my smalls. It’s now very humid and 30 degrees below
deck which means nothing dries unless it’s hung outside and even then it is
subject to sea spray.
This morning we landed our first fish (bonito or small
tuna?). This put a smile on my face as the previous attempt this morning ended
in disaster as something very large snatched the squid lure and stripped off
approx. 75 yards of line back to the reel in under 10 seconds, followed by a
smarting whiplash as it went ‘ping’. I reloaded the reel with line and a smaller
lure which resulted in the fish you see below. Generally we are going too fast
for the lure to be effective, however being an optimist I leave it
out.
PS. Thanks to
the many blog watchers who emailed recipes for banana bread; it was a great
success and something we’ll be doing again.
....not sure what the RCC would have to say about this
signal?!