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Annabella - LOG 5 Saturday 30th



Position: 19 42.663N
24 15.859W

Distance since last blog: 150 NM ish


Well, what a difference a day makes! contrary to yesterdays lack of wind, but in line with the forecasts we have been receiving, the wind picked up during the night and we are now experiencing 25 - 30 knots of breeze. During the night we put two reefs in the main and furled the genoa to 2 reef equivalent. We have been competing to see who can get the most speed on the wheel. Conor and I are on 10.1 and 10.4 knots respectively and Peter is trying to catch up. (Otto just managed 12.3 knots going down a wave) We should have good winds for the rest of the day with less this evening and tomorrow looking light enough. We are now below 20 degrees latitude and will continue SW for another 60 - 100 miles. Hopefully by then the easterly trade winds will kick in to take us to St Lucia.

We had a visitor yesterday afternoon in the form of a white egret. We don't think that this is normal stamping grounds for a wader. We were admiring it as it flew around the boat and much to our surprise it attempted to land on our wind vane. Consternation set in because it might damage the instrument. Out came the fog horn to scare it away and after a couple of aborted attempts it flew off. About an hour later we look up the mast to find that it was now perched on the wind vane. No amount of noise from the fog horns would shift it. Egrets are much bigger than pigeons. Yeah, we all know it needed a rest but I had very unpleasant visions of having to climb the mast to repair the damage. It eventually flew off, much rested and without any damage to the boat.

Following our missed communication with Ocean Breeze the night before last, we decided to try to make contact with another boat to check if our VHF radio was working. We managed to raise Athena of Southampton who was further south. He confirmed that our VHF signal was good so we are at a loss to understand why Ocean Breeze could not hear us. The person who responded on Athena was irish, but we didn't get any more details. The boat is an Ocean Star 56.1 and is owned by Carey Yacht Charters.

On the lost property front, the handheld VHF appeared but we are still missing to fruit cakes (I know, I know, there are already five other fruit cakes on board).

We passed a couple of boats in the last 12 hours and made contact with one of them, Moondancer, a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45, who was finding the sea state a bit of a handful. He was sailing on headsail only.

Finally, you probably all think that this trip is like a summer cruise. Well, so far we have had one day of sunshine and no wind, several days of cloud with some wind, and we had a down pour for 12 hours during last night and now we are on a roller coaster. Hence the comment about the five fruit cakes because, believe it or not, we are enjoying it.

That's it for today.

Peter (Pug), Stephen, Conor, Craig & Terry (blogger)

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