N37:54:699 W35:34:788
Boat Miles:- 1502
Miles to go:- 330
The sun has actually been coming along nicely for
some days now and Sailing on Sunshine over the waves is a wonderful experience.
After our years in the Caribbean though we had almost fogotten that sunshine is
not necessarily warm, thank goodness for thermals. Mind you these do create
their own problems. We have been having a good laugh together over phrases we
use quite often that suddenly take on new meaning. I went below saying
'I'm just nipping to the loo', quick as a flash Andrew says, no way, there won't
be anything nippy about it, you will be at least half an hour getting out of
your clolthes.....and then put them back on again (very much a female thing
here) and there I was giggling all the way.
Thermals are such a boon and we have also fallen in
love with our salopettes again. Wonderful garments, stopping all those pesky
daraughts trying to get down your back, even if they don't keep you dry
anymore.The only drawback to getting them on and off, it occasionally gets a bit
difficult (I'm sure you bring an image to mind) and of course at the moment
Andrew finds it a bit tricky with his sore ribs and has to be very
careful how he goes about it.
I do think there are some gaps in the market for
some items though. We think socks are a briliant invention but even better would
be automatic socks - ones that respond to your environment and keep you toastie
warm, cool or completely dry - I am not sure how they would work but its fun to
think about. I still think there is a niche for the cat/boat as well, it is a
mono hull crossing the vast ocean plains but once off the coast can be converted
in to a catamaran......
We have lots of thinking time out here as I am sure
you can tell and during watches it helps to keep awake if you mull over everyday
problems that cruisers face. Lots of questions and generally no answers, after
all I am sure many of you have pondered over the art of how to stack the
fridge.so that the items you would like are not always at the bottom. I keep
trying different things and for a few days think I have it cracked but then fail
again. The perceved wisdom is that (especially for passages) is that you stack
in the order you will use stuff to minimise opening the fridge. Sounds
wonderful but as you take stuff out you want to fill it back up again to keep it
efficicient and the easiest thing to hand are usually drinks, so the system goes
pear shaped straight away, unless of course you then restack it.....Andrew -
smarty pants (and not on the outside yet) - said 'that's easy - you have a
separate drinks fridge'. Now just a minute here, another fridge, I can just
imagine the reality if I was suddenly serious about this. Instantly the
discussions would be around how big, wher would it go but most important of
all....power.We do know folk on bigger (Cats etc) who have this arrangement and
I must remember to ask if they still have trouble stacking the food
fridge.
For those on terra firma who might be a bit
perplexed by this subject - our fridge is in the corner of our galley with the
sink unit on one side and the cooker (don't go there) on the other, you access
it through a hatch at the top. To reach anything at the very bottom you
have to lean right across the corner and cannot do this with the burners on.
Piece de resistance though is attempting to do any of these things at sea.
After a couple of days you are delving in the depths of the fridge and stuff
moves so you take it out, but can only cope with so many thing sliding about
trying to get back in the fridge before you can even spot what you wanted to
get, I often think I am playing a game of reverse hoopla....now there's a
thought.
And what follows for the fridge just about mirrors
any locker space you have, whether it is dedicated to one type of content or a
mixture. You can almost guarantee that whatever you would like to get will
necessitate in the removal of most of the other contents first.
On the upside and there are so many I have learnt a
few useful lessons and have a couple of good practises. I always weigh out my
rice, pasta,and couscous into two person portions as I just know I would
otherwise spill an entire bag over the floor. I have eventually found some
lovely (guess the colour) plastic baskets just the right size for putting stuff
in to go up into the cockpit on passage and this time I put together a lidded
plastic box with the staple tims we use most often and portions of rice etc and
this has worked wonderfully well - don't have t take out all those tins to find
the right one!
Yesterday we had an email from Andrew's brother
which again had us chuckling... this time re the wind indicator, here is what he
said
So you have a negative wind speed (what we call a suck in physics), a
minor plague of gremlins, waterproof clothing that is not and an area off
Bermuda where you get strange (or no) readings on your GPS. There are two
possible explanations. One is that you have been watching too many films
and lack of sleep is leading to confusion between real life and dreams fueled by
film memories. A reminder, the one where you are sore, wet and tired is,
sadly, real life: the other bits are dreams.
The other explanation is that
you have hit what we call a Henshall zone. This is an area (usually near
or surrounding a science technician) where science is broken. We have one
of these at school; batteries inserted into coils of wire fail to generate
electricity, electrical current passing through aluminium coils fail to heat
water, explosions don't explode etc. The unusual thing about your
particular Henshall zone is the absence of criticality or audience.
Usually Henshall zones operate most effectively when its really, really
important that things work as expected, e.g. a lesson is being observed and
scored (that's when the computer will usually freeze or start demanding a
password just because it can) or when the maximum number of people are waiting
for something to happen. It is quite rare for a Henshall zone to be
encountered when there are so few people to be affected by it.
Perhaps
the dolphins were trying to tell you that you were entering a Henshall zone but
being human you didn't understand. Shame because if you had filmed
their 'playing' we might have been able to work out some of their
language.
Thoughts to ponder over the next few
watches and just one last funny. Whilst keeping Andrew dosed up with pain
killers I had been writing down what he had taken and when and then the next day
was lokking at my notes and read what I took to say Hotle man, this really
puzzled me until we realised I had acutally written Hot
Lemon.....
more in due course
PS Heard a voice on the radio last night - someone
was within 25 miles of us - a voice after 2 weeks.....wonderful!
PPS Less than 20% and 3/16ths to go in terms of
distance......
Andrew & Susan aka the Peeps
S/V Andromeda
of Plymouth - still dancing and pirouetting with those
waves