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Aislig Bheag - Land Hola!



Start with a terrible joke, end with a terrible joke that’s what I say! Well, no more fenders to rescue unfortunately, at least not ones we should be rescuing (attached to fishing pots).  In the last two nights however we’ve had a couple of encounters worthy of Our Man in Havana reporting.  The first was the appearance of a strange warship on the horizon which looked like a frigate from a Navy of unknown origin.  Out of that warship two hovercraft were zipping around with lights flashing like something out of an early 90s Harrison Ford movie.  Our dedicated duo on watch, the mother and daughter ‘borrowers’ swore blind the next morning that the warship was seen recovering what looked like a capsule from Out of Space, “there were little green men and everything” Alison recounted with a wide smile. 
 
John looked distinctly sceptical however and asked the crucial question of whether they’d added rum to their hot chocolates again (an incident from two nights previous that had scandalised the entire crew owing to its originality and daring initiative) but was assured that they had had not.  “No” burst out Eilidh “the previous evenings snack (shameless pilfering) had ‘merely’ consisted of “the last fruit salads and condensed cream”.  John’s eyes silently wept with tears while the rest of the crew shook their head in mock disgust (all secretly wishing they had been on ‘that’ watch as well as the rum hustle the night  before).  For dessert that night the last of the Digestive biscuits were handed out silently amongst the crew.  The dry taste of oaks mixing bitterly with the colourful imaginings of fruit in syrup and cream, cream DAMMIT!
 
The following night again, while the rest of the crew slept, their dreams filled with exotic thoughts of frosty beer glasses (Owen, Eilidh and Alison), pastries (Michael), parmesan cheese over spaghetti (Gaetano), and functioning hydraulic backstays (poor John), it was the girls who spotted a suspect looking fishing boat inching its way across the horizon.  Suspect because it was another boat, out in the middle of the Ocean.  “Why would anyone be out in the middle of the ocean doing five knots for the fun of it?” they both asked in unison. It made no sense unless of course they were actually fishermen! Still, making sure that we didn’t foul their nets or interrupt their trawling path managed to give the crew a decent thirty minutes or so of gripping discussion and excitement.  It was a bit like two boxers moving slowly towards each other in the ring, both moving at a few mm’s a minute (AIS screen time, with the crowd holding its breath waiting for a blow, then at the last minute they both just sidle past each other giving each other a cursory glance.  It’s that sort of excitement only ocean sailors can appreciate!
 
So anyway, there you have it, two gripping night watch stories to report. On the actual sailing front there’s been zero wind for about 24hrs now and we’re motoring along (like the rest of the ARC it appears).  If we get a wind surge overnight we’re hoping to put the cruising chute up for the final leg of the journey and hopefully we’ll be supping a beer in Horta this time tomorrow to recount all these and other great stories to you in person! If you buy us a beer we might really tell you what happened in the epic fender rescue of 2015!
 
Anyway, as you can tell the last 180 miles towards a beer, sorry, ‘LAND’, are speeding by.  It’s a bit like the night before Christmas as a child where you try to force yourself to sleep early so that the presents will appear when you open your eyes. I think even John slept in a lot longer today as he’s hoping for Santa to deliver that Hydraulic backstay part he needs! 
 
So without further ado, I’m off to get some kip before the midnight watch.  See you all tomorrow, hopefully!
 
Crew out.


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