Tuesday, 25th January 2011
00.20hrs Distance traveled.................................748 miles
Distance to Destination........................1178 miles
It was a good night at sea, the wind held steady all night, and the moon always makes for great night sailing. We are still on a starboard broad reach, heading NW, with a goose wing set.
06.00hrs We have moved our position from 36 miles south of our rum line to 24 miles north of the rum line, so we decided it was time to gybe back onto port, which we did over the next 35 minutes, but we also put up the "Bag of fear" and off we went.
Dawn and sunrise were as beautiful as ever, that big huge crimson ball of fire creeping up over the eastern horizon is magic. It certainly reassures one that a new day, a new time, another new start is happening just now.
09.00hrs Radio Call :- net controller today is A Lady. We just held our own with the fleet. Our move northwards slowed down progress in the short time, just for a day hopefully it will pay dividends in the longer term... However, we seem to have much more wind than the rest of the fleet, the effects of this will show tomorrow morning.
Our morning coffee discussion revolved around the band "The U2". This very successful Irish band will be holding a concert in Cape Town in a few weeks time, Sham and Emily are hoping to go back stage after the event, as Emily used to work for them in "Wind Mill Lane" in London many years ago, when they were in their early days and almost unknown.
Aileen decided to make more brown bread, all on board love this bread, including Mr. Tape (Worm). He can't wait for Sham to fill him up again.......
As the day wore on, it got very hot, the temp. in the Saloon was 29 degrees and the humidity was 60%. We had plenty of showers, that's the great thing about being able to make about 150L of water per hour with the watermaker or desalinization plant on board. Plenty of water for showers and washing.
A very large tanker passed within a mile of us during Dinner heading SE towards the Cape of Good Hope. Dinner (by Skipper) consisted of roast smoked belly pork, with all that wonderful crackling, creamed potatoes with cabbage and chopped up onions mixed through them and a couple of spoons of Mayo to finish them off, added to this heart attack stuff, we had fresh green beans and carrots, and a can of beer.
We admired the flying fish, hundreds of them as they continuously fly away from the boat, its an every day, if not an every hour occurrence, but we are so used to it, we tend to forget about this wonderful sight.
The Beer is in celebration of us crossing half way during the coming night.
The night watches tonight :- 9pm/00 ...........................Sham
00/3am.............................Emily
3am/6am..........................Aileen
6am/9am..........................Skipper
That's all,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )