MONDAY 7th MAY
2012
06.00hrs Beautifull morning, not a cloud to
be seen, but its flat calm and we are still motoring.
the engine is running at 1800 revs and we have a
speed of 7knots over ground and with a cross current of 0.5kts
There are still 2 boats in front of us, "
Asteroid" and some other french boat, also heading for Bermuda,
Skipper got into the computer early and wrote up
the blog, did some emails and got the weather from the
" Grib Files" plus weather and advice from Arnaud,
One thing for sure, we are not going to have much
wind, if any at all, despite all the old tricks
like whistling, sticking a knife in the mast, which
is difficult anyway as the mast is made of carbon fibre.
We put out the fishing line in the hope of catching
a monster fish, and we did eventually at dusk,
The line shot off , zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz A FISH ! , by the time we reached the
rod,
the begger had taken half the spool of line out and
then snapped the lure off and away he went,
This guy had to be big to do what he did in just a
few seconds,
Anyway, we had our morning roll call at 09.00hrs on
the SSB with all the other boats in the fleet, around 30 boats
in all. we give our positions, the distance
remaining to Bermuda, what our conditions are like,
the wind direction and strength and any other bits
of interest.
The rest of the morning was spent as usual catching
some sleep, chatting , cleaning & sunning,
12.00hrs Trip to
here.........................350 miles
Distance to destination........520 miles,
Fuel...................................700L
Water
................................500L
Lunch was made up of salad sandwiches, consisting
of Chpopped up leuttice, red onions, spring onions,
and of course eggs with Mayonnese, we then stuffed
the mixture into bread buns, but first we removed
most of the bread from the centre of the buns,
allowing a hollow centre for the salad,
This allows it to be eaten without the filling
squeezing out and down all over the silk dresses, or should we say
down over the bikini's and bare flesh. all washed
down with cool water,
Skipper had a chat on the SSB with Dave & Susan
on " Voyaguer", they sailed the world ARC with us and
are like part of the family at this stage.
15.00hrs The wind improved to 10 / 12 knots
from the west, but not enoug to sail without the engine,
so we just kept motor sailing.
By late afternoon, we lost radar contact with the
other 2 boats, but could still get " Asteroid " on VHF.
17.00hrs, we shut down the engine and got some
sailing , but our speed reduced from 7 knots to 5,0 knots,
Ahhh well, we willl have the dinner, consisting of
Turkey meat balls, spagetti, and rice, all fortified with
red onions and mushrooms ,yum,yum,
More chatting before getting into the night
watches,
Stories of " Cruachan" ( our old Loch Fyne Skiff )
built in 1896 at Ardrishig in Scotland, racing the 1720's and
racing J24's in Bermuda ( thats skipper and Denis
back in 1984 ) nearly all stories of sailing adventures,
Of course then there were all the stories of the
Pirates, mostly narrated by skipper , who is reading all
about them at present.............. Black
Beard, Admiral Drake, Henry Morgan, ande hundreds more,
Night Watches
:------------- 21.00hrs ---------- 00.00hrs Denis
& Vera,
00.00hrs
-------- 03.00hrs Tom & Linda
03.00hrs ------- 06.00hrs Skipper &
Aileen
06.00hrs
------- 09.00hrs Denis & Vera
Another beautifull moonlight night,
Thats all for now,
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde ( Skipper )