Day 7... and less than a thousand miles to go!
Life on board has settled down into a comfortable routine: Beer at midday, G+T at 5.30pm and a glass of red with dinner. Followed by a wee dram on watch. But its not all home comforts... we have all been getting used to life at a 45 degree angle to the world and it is notable how cold it has got over recent days - the duvets are now all being used and the Cuppa Soup mountain that we started with is now a mere hillock. We have had a few rain showers too so the Scottish contingent are beginning to feel at home.
Unfortunately, early this morning the winds died and we have had to do a bit of motoring but this did give us a chance this morning to stop for a swim (all part of our race technique...) Gus, Gavin (AKA Stan) and Peter duly jumped in and we were shocked to find that the boat was still moving in the water.. Fortunately they are all good swimmers and managed to rejoin us shortly thereafter... Pete tried to record the event on his camera but soon discovered that "Waterproof" and "Suitable for use when swimming" are two different concepts so his Lumix is currently out of service!!
Fortunately from late morning the sun came out and the winds have returned so we have even got the chance to try out the cruising chute (the large coloured sail with the unusual "Bamar" furling system freshly untangled from the last leg when we tried to use the finest origami techniques to turn a large coloured piece of sailcloth into something useful on a boat and failed miserably). This time we followed one of Nick's favourite sayings "RTFM" - Read the Furling Manual... and discovered that actually it is quite simple. As I type away we are making 8.5 kts on a glorious sunny day with a decent breeze, almost in the right direction, somewhere mid-Atlantic.. and all is well with the world!
So whilst the Wet Pink Watch get on with being sailors up on deck, I thought that I would use today's report to respond to 2 of the questions we have been inundated with due to the runaway success of our blog (yesterday we got into double figures of viewings - thanks to you both)..
Topic 1: The environment and rubbish disposal.
One of the things that we have all been struck by on board Johanem (other than how difficult it is to shower at 45 degrees) is the beauty and importance of the environment. Certainly since being on board we have all cut back substantially on the use of soaps, shampoos, deodorants and shaving foams; perhaps a small step, but we think its a nonetheless important contribution to the planet. Funnily enough this has also had the immediate impact of making us all appreciate the fresh air outside that little bit more. Anyway, we have been recycling as much as possible: having decided that tea towels don't really need cleaning and tea bags don't need to be taken out of the pot until there is no room for the water - even Nick's jokes have been doing sterling service having been used several times each.
We have also debated at length what we should be doing to minimise our impact on the ocean. However, as eco friendly as we have all become, there is also the overriding practical issue of carrying rubbish home on a yacht which has limited storage space outside the cabin. Like most boats on the ARC therefore, we dispose over the side all foodstuffs that are not going to be eaten (principally anything green it seems), paper products, tins, cans and glass bottles. It goes against the grain to throw so much over board, but all these items break down eventually and in a caring way provide homes for crabs and other wildlife in the meantime (or so the skipper says!). However, nothing plastic is disposed of - its all collected and taken home (to be lovingly placed in a landfill somewhere). And all this is carefully monitored on board by the Johanem Environment Team - Litter Awareness Group. Please follow us on Twitter on #JETLAG.
Topic 2: Wildlife encountered on our trip so far
One of the advantages of not troubling the leader board on this race, oops rally, is that we have been able to follow in the tracks of and learn from some of the faster yachts. Being the keen Eco Warriers that we are, we always comment disapprovingly on any debris that we see on the ocean's surface - and so far we have seen fenders, plastic bottles, pieces of wood etc etc.. But we were very disappointed a few days ago to see a series of plastic bags floating on the surface - each one about the size of an orange. We even started to accuse our fellow Rally Participants of failing to adopt the same high standards as ourselves on the eco side of life aboard. But then 2 things dawned on us: 1) we were so far behind that it was very unlikely that they had been thrown in by the ARC yachts, and 2) the plastic bags had tentacles. Yes... they were Portuguese Men of War!! Well, jelly fish anyway. Lots of them :-( And, Dear Reader, they seem light up at night... is that possible? Please let us know what Google says on the subject.
Earlier on this leg we were also fortunate enough to see a fabulous school of dolphins earlier on the trip - approx 30 of them playing around the bow of the boat in the clearest of water. It never fails to bring the feel good factor to the boat - even to a boat full of cynical blokes!.
But today has been a banner day for wildlife ..... we were just having our "1000 miles remaining" beer o'clock celebration (with pistachios and Cheesy Whatsits) when a large whale surfaced and blew about 30 meters away on our port side... she was massive but didn't hang about long enough for a photo shoot. And no sooner had we gone back to the serious business of the Heineken cans and smoked salmon / freshly baked bread sandwiches than she popped up on the other side at about 50 meters. A marvelous feeling.
Yesterday we were accompanied the whole day by 6 or so birds (there are no twitchers on board so I cant report on the species - but they were brown and flew about 2 cm from the water with a wing virtually touching the waves) who obviously wrongly thought that we would lead them to the fishing grounds.. however, by today they have clearly realised that this is a waste of time. Unfortunately we haven't seen a fish for several days - Graham tells us that there is nothing wrong with our fishing, its just the catching that's missing.. so lets see..
Well that's about all our news. Time for a kip.
Ian