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Koala - Dec 6th: Mid Atlantic Road-kill



Yesterday evening, as part of what is becoming a ritual, we had our sundowner in the cockpit reading emails from friends in the fleet and from family. Then the author sprang into action and rustled up a curry with some of the fresh stuff that was unlikely to last much longer following our detailed stock take and cull.

The night-shift started well with Koala sailing by herself beautifully. The wind then got up a bit, which is great because we were making some good progress, but it was unstable in strength and direction which meant that we ended up hand-steering much of the night, and the cross swell banging the main about cut down on sleep for the off-watch as well.

This morning, we noticed an unfortunate flying fish, a good size this time, that had hit the main during the night and had subsequently dropped nose first on to the deck with sufficient force to pop out both its eyes! Nice... I didn't eat it (and some of you will know that I eat pretty much anything) as it by the time we noticed it it was partially dried in the sun. I lobbed it over the side, so I am sure someone down there will eat it. Instead, having noticed that I had missed breakfast at about 11:00, I set out to see how many stale digestives you can consume with a single cup of coffee, which perked up my sugar levels.

With regards to coffee, we had a great tip from a mate in Gran Canaria, Jon Couch, which is tubes of condensed milk for tea and coffee. Saves having to open the fridge to look for the milk, just give a quick squirt to each cup, and once you get used to it, it is really quite pleasant.

Julia claims that the reliability of our speedo is completely beyond reproach after it recorded a peak speed of 82 knots during the night whilst she was helming. It seems unlikely that this record will ever be beaten, although I must admit, I think I slept through that bit.

Today we are enjoying some good speeds going in the right direction, which is a massive relief after a few trying days. However, there was discussion on the net this morning about a "big hole in the wind" stretching from about 15-20 degrees North in about 48 hours time. The question is, head a bit further south and try and sneak round the bottom of it, head North and go round the top (not keen on that, we've just come from there) or just cash in 36 hours of diesel and go right through it. At the moment, we are heading a little bit more south, hoping that our present wind conditions remain with us for now and will make a more positive call tomorrow. The good news was that there are trade-wind conditions predicted to start on Tuesday of about 5 Bft, which would be fantastic.



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