So for our frequent readers who were on the edge of their seats as to the status of our mast, I am pleased to announce that it is still in a very much vertical position and the ominous noises haven’t been heard for a good 36 hours. In addition to this we have no new breakages to report, and therefore haven’t had much to do today. The night was calm, with a beautiful moon and beautiful stars, with the only excitement being that another flying fish tried to join Sam and I in bed. Luckily Carl fought it off bravely, so disaster was averted.
The lack of breakages (long may it continue) has resulted in a very relaxing day. We have sat around reading, sunbathing, eating tropical fruit and listening to Cuban music. The sun is very powerful down here, and 6 people trying to seek shade in a tiny cockpit isn’t ideal, but we are making it work. We have a nice 20 knot breeze from astern which helps with the heat too. Anyway, there is no way I am going to moan about the weather, in the full knowledge that you guys are reading this from latitudes far north of here.
Our only achievement today has been to patch up a hole in our main sail and subsequently to change the sail configuration from a trysail and genoa, to a triple reefed main and genoa. This change could probably have been done days ago, but the general relaxed atmosphere aboard has meant it’s taken about 3 days to get round to it. This is fine by me as progress has still been good, and it has felt nice to focus on our books and tans rather than obsessing over sail setting.
We are hoping to hit the halfway point tomorrow which is the cause of much excitement onboard. The forecast is for more of the same good weather so hopefully the second half of the voyage is as successful as the first.