Hi Guys,
Another uneventful day yesterday. Still have very light winds which is frustrating. One patch of 12-15 knots for about 2 hours last night where we got Mikado up doing 8-9 knots. But this was preceded by a couple of hours of motoring and followed by the "crashing and bashing" of the sails in the 4-5 knots of breeze that lasted til dawn. We now have 10-12 knots on the beam and are sailing nicely along at 5-6 knots.
The winds on this trip have not been what we expected. I feel a bit cheated that we haven't yet had some roaring trade winds to get us up and going to get the full "Atlantic sailing experience"...But we still have 1500 NM to go..
On my watch at 3am this morning I got a shock when a flying fish landed straight into my lap whilst sitting at the helm ... You also get the odd one flying into the hull. Funny looking things...a cross between a big March Fly and a fish. During the day you often see a few schools (or is that squadrons?) of them zooming over the sea; a bit like Kamikaze aircraft.
A few domestic chores today...will get the boys to help me give the cabins a good clean. Not sure where all the dust comes from out here. Belly suggests it is "dried human skin"....YUK. Anyway, I'll get the gear out (vacumn cleaner, duster, polishing cloths etc...) and get her ship-shape again. (Maybe we can enter her against Sophistikate in the pretty yacht competition??...will have to disguise her as an Oyster though??) The decks got a good wash down yesterday after we cleaned the big Wahoo....you can't avoid getting a bit of "blood and guts" splattered about the place as they come on board and get cleaned. But the effort was rewarded with a beautiful Thai fish curry with Jasmine rice last night....
Current position 17:01.04N 34:47.91W at 1000 UTC 3/12/08
Cheers
Ian