Day 2
Well
we’ve made it through two days and nights at sea .. the Crew on both
watches still adorned in their Children With Cancer charity t-shirts…its
truly beautiful out here with shooting stars galore, Port watch saw their first
pod of dolphins and our first flashes of phosphorescence came bubbling up like
ocean fireworks from the depths.
Spent the
last 24hrs running on a Southerly Course then gybed westerly steering at about
240 degrees...everyone is getting to know each other and great banter is
developing amongst the watches, initially bought on by Trevor at the helm with
a flagging Yankee that eventually tore, followed by yours truly opening tinned
new potatoes rather than using fresh ones .. Skip thought the Yankee would go
due to its age so the spud misdemeanour was treated with more discipline.. the
Port watch enjoying the moment by repeatedly complimenting me on the taste of
the spuds !! 277NM run Mark N-J
Day 3
The wind God’s dictated a
nice down wind sail for us today so Port watch had the delight of flying a
spinnaker for the first time during their forenoon watch. All learnt what a
fickle thing she is to keep flying. The skipper announced that the watermaker
is working well, it can be showers all around now, to the delight of the crew.
During the night the wind gods
had a change of mind and decided we had had enough of the downwind sailing
causing poor old Port watch to dispose of the spinnaker and hoist the foresails
during the early hours of Wednesday. Now beating into a good southerly wind and
making good progress.
The sun has been making a
welcome appearance and the bronzing of manly torsos has begun with the cry of
“where’s my sun cream”.
Distance run today 180 miles.
Les Hudson (Uncle Albert to
some!!!)
Day 4
At last, showers.
However, much to mine and Graham’s surprise, the water tank ran out after
the majority of showers, leaving us both soapy and waterless. More potato
shenanigans occurred when Trevor repeated, rhetorically, Mark’s earlier
question of “You like you mash lumpy?” while pulling out a fist
sized potato from his dinner. Unfortunately the sunset was still imperfect as
the low clouds of the horizon masked the sun once more.
Port watch had an
interesting midnight watch. When we took over from starboard true wind was
7knots. We then managed some good speed with the wind increasing to 16knots .
The night was a pleasant one, full of funny stories, shooting stars, dolphins
darting to and fro around the boat, and a great flash in the sky, lighting up
the boat and the surrounding ocean. Rupert, our de facto astrologist, reckoned
it was a large piece of debris breaking up in the atmosphere. Unfortunately the
wind just kept dropping and by the time starboard watch come back it had
dropped to only 6knots.
When we came back for the
morning watch the wind had dropped even more. However this was mitigated by the
first clear sunrise we’ve had, and it was stunning. Later we replaced the
head sails with the Genoa.
Now by this point the wind had dropped even lower and I mistakenly flew to
close to the wind and backed the Genoa.
This meant that the only way out to get back on course was the go full circle,
which at about 1o a second, took over five minutes. Now, with the
sun high in the sky were trying our hand at fishing, and Trevor was having
great fun playing with Paul and
Darren’s tackle !
Lastly the Churchill quotes and
the shortbread have gone down a storm thanks C
588 miles run. Alex B Cranfield