Saturday 11th October
A DAY
IN THE LIFE
Perfect mornings sailing again! Warm breeze, blue sky and
8 knots of boat speed in the last hour!
Unlike other legs with more crew, we have no jobs rota on
this cruise! However everyone does his or her bit domestically. Ian has
volunteered, as he does not cook, to be on permanent washing up! (Watch out
Fiona he is threatening to learn to cook when he gets back!). Ian also cleans
out the grot boxes (Waste water traps). Malcy cuts up, cleans, compacts and
stores the plastic waste (another bad job!). I seem to be on carpet cleaning as
no one else is doing it. Lindsey is on occasional lunches and forward heads
cleaning, amongst other jobs.
Lindsey and Ian spend a lot of time on their journals
after a shore visit. These are comprehensive accounts of the places visited and
excursions made with lots of photos.
The
limiting factor in not sending more photos by email with my brief logs is the
speed of the data transmission by Iridium phone. It is a very frustrating
business and usually takes 3 or 4 attempts to get through and up to 10 minutes
of airtime at a dollar a minute! This is after I have downsized the photos to a
fraction of their original pixel size. I have reduced by another 25% for the
last few photos as transmitting them is more of a nightmare than usual ? hence
the quality is rather poor!
So
lunch is now well past. We chucked a lot of ham, which has been on the boat
since Darwin and ate melon and Parma ham with smoked salmon and salad
afterwards. We have 18-20 knots 120 degrees off our stern, a little cloudy now,
but still hot and are averaging 7.5 knots. Malcy is determined to go to
Christmas Island (so named by a Captain William Mynors of the Royal Mary when
sighted on 25 Dec 1643), so I have just adjusted the course to take us to the
North East of the Island and then on to Flying Fish Cove. We will have to slow
down a bit as they don't recommend an approach in the dark and we will be there
on current progress between 3 and 4 am!
Sundowner time and through boredom I succumb to having a
G & T, which I gave up many years ago (they make me depressed and I rarely
drink spirits anyway). We listen to another episode of Clare in the Community
and the others play cards whilst I finish off dinner. Tonight a very simple Beef
Stroganoff. On serving it without tasting it, Malcy demands Lea and Perrins. I
suggest a meat cleaver through the head might be more appropriate, suggesting a
strong sauce before even tasting the chef's offering! Actually he wasn't far
wrong it was a bit bland!
So to
bed as I am on 1 to 3.30, but I didn't sleep much. Its great to be in the large
aft cabin on my own and have exclusive use of the ensuite, but its really noisy
from the prop shaft generator in particular as well as the self-steering and the
boats pitching around a bit. Coming up I discover everything (all the sails) is
up and we have 25-30 knots behind us! (Malcy being Macho Man!). So I reef the
main and Yankee and we increase the boat speed and its a lot more comfortable!
We seem to have 1.5 knots of current with us and are making 9.5
knots!
So we
pass Christmas Island between 2 and 3 am, but no photos! Still a good moonlit
night and a cracking sail! Now 517 nm from Cocos and we are in position 10:22 S
and 105:29 East. So as Lindsey says I'm off to
Bedfordshire!