3-4th December Skippers Blog
Evening 3rd, day 4th
We have all settled nicely into the hand steering routine, without the high maintenance spinnaker requiring constant attention, we are all getting lots of rest and although speed has been sacrificed, we are starting to enjoy ourselves again. Unfortunately, as night fell, the horizon began to display some extremely violent electrical storms. Now the sailors that are reading this will appreciate what went through our minds at that time, for those that are not sailors, I will outline some of the risks lightning posses and the precautions that can be taken. As you can imagine, a large metal rod, in a moist humid environment, during an electrical storm, is not ideal. One stray bolt of lightning would undoubtedly destroy all our electrics and could potentially tear down the mast or remove the keel. GREAT! As the lightning became more erratic across the horizon, we put essential electronics into the oven, a natural protection for such items in the event of a strike and altered course to avoid what we assumed to be worst affected areas.
Seeing as you are reading this e-mail, you have probably deduced that we did not in fact get struck by lightning and replaced our electronics in their rightful places at day break. Today has been a scorcher, our tans have improved dramatically, we have sessioned the solar shower once again and even got the hand wash to some of our clothes. The wind has been steady allowing good speed and we are all beginning to smell the rum punch at the finish.
Finally, John wishes everybody to know that he is sick of flying fish landing in the cockpit at night, seeing as neither Neil nor he have experienced this, he is convinced he is being targeted.
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