Trim, eat, eat, trim, eat!
Dawn broke to produce a beautiful sunny day with crystal blue skies and the call for a kite launch. The big orange beastie went up again and stayed there - all day. The boat - driven and trimmed - by the crew propelled us in the direction of the Cape Verdes, humming along at perfectly respectable speeds of 8 knots.
Once again we continued to eat - I swear this is the only transatlantic crossing where I will put on weight!! After a hearty breakfast, tea and biscuits arrived mid-morning with lunch - today delightful bacon butties (not a single fish paste sandwich in sight!!!!!) - being followed by our standard afternoon tea and cake which arrived at 3.0pm. Supper swiftly followed at 1740 hours! I couldn't move! I think we will all look like beached whales by the time we arrive in St. Lucia. I think restraint is required.
Sunbathing seemed the order of the day but I must add that we had an energetic afternoon moving the spinnaker pole forward at least three inches - once - before more sunbathing. The troops seemed to separate into one-sex teams with the boys up first - one helm, one trimmer and one grinder - setting the girls a boat speed target to chase. After hours of trading the play area between teams a cracking 10.4 knots was obtained and held by the boys before the kite was dropped just after supper and I am pleased to report that the time it took to pack the kite was rapidly reduced this time to a healthy 45 minutes - a race record!!
Conversation continued throughout the day and was rather circumspect frankly so I shall leave it on the boat where it belongs. Sadly not a boat in sight all day and no wildlife to play with either except there were reports of little phospheresant torpedos playing on the bow at dusk. That's dolphins to those who haven't had the pleasure of sailing at night.
Once again the night watches settled into place and for me a change of timing and a change of watch members. I took the 3am-7am watch with Vix, Russ and Sam and once again conversation resorted to important issues this time to include our top ten favourite movies with the Wizard of Oz being named as a someone's favourite!!!!! Can you believe that!
In amongst all our movie chat conducted by four people who eventually admitted to not really being movie watchers a top speed of 11.5knots was produced. Content in our achievement my watch handed over the helm and headed for their bunks.
Em Pontin
Big Spirit