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Challenger 4 - Challenger 4 Entry Fifteen



The day it got hot and sweaty…..

Same old, same old, same old. We’ve been at sea for 14 days now. The sun rises, trundles over the sky and sinks. The wind goes up and then down. The sea is still blue. The mothers keep cooking and another day is done.

To be a bit more precise for today, the night watches had some great shooting star displays to keep us entertained as we rolled along under an unconventional rig looking like granny’s washing line. Progress was good and we had taken a few miles back on one of the other Challenger yachts.

Sunrise was grand again, and then we had a whale swim alongside for long enough for the camera to catch it and prove madness hadn’t totally set in. We launched the kite while most folks were still snuggled in their bed, the day heated up, the wind died and we all started getting hot.

Mid-morning mother duties included finding a rogue cheese that had escaped from a cool box and had spent the last few days festering, followed by trying to constrain the spread of Sam’s socks around the cabin.

Soup was cancelled from the menu to be replaced by fresh bread, cheese and meats. A sort of British Ploughman’s mid Atlantic. We tried fishing again, but this time drew a blank – maybe we have fished the Atlantic out already? The afternoon treat was another lemon drizzle cake, after which we had a little rest to build up energy for the spinnaker drop and wooling in the cabin. Wooling is this funny sailing activity in which you stretch the spinnaker out from bow to stern below decks, wiggling it through all the cabins, and then you have to roll the sides in so it becomes a long snake like thing around which you then have to tie wool at 1 foot intervals. This is all done in a ridiculous heat below decks so you all get sweaty. Then you have to fold the long snake into its bag and then shoving the whole thing back up the companion way. This is where our personal trainer, Dave, comes into his own, flexing his biceps and pulling it out in one go.

Dinner was another yummy one pot pasta dish followed by tea. Evening showers were well deserved tonight, wiping away a day’s grime, before we settled down for the night. The wind fizzled out further taking away any cooling breeze as we sat on deck. A reef went in the main, not because we had too much wind, but to try and stop it bashing around as we all sat here wallowing around in a big blue ocean.

We’ve started dreaming about what drinks we will buy when we arrive. Definitely something with a lot of ice. Moral is still high and we are hoping for better winds tomorrow to push us along towards that ice cold drink.

Xxx Hayley, Alan and Bruce

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