Milla of Falmouth - Milla: Progress Report 11 - Mindelo / St Lucia Part 3

Hi all

Friday

Thankfully, last night was a calmer one with a steady 14-16 knots, which
was just enough to make the zero fly and a good night's sleep was had by
all.The moon appears much later now and is on the wane, but when it does,
it turns the sea into a silver landscape - very pretty if you like that
sort of thing and also being up at 0300.

For a number of days there has been a foul smell emerging from the head
next to the galley. In an attempt to rectify the problem, the wc has been
cleaned four times, but to no avail. Solutions to resolve this dilemma
once we have arrived in St Lucia, have already been devised involving
dosing the holding tank with disinfectant and more loo scrubbing.

Any way the good news is, upon further inspection and a desperate attempt
to determine the source of the odour, the under sink cupboard was fully
explored, and low and behold the culprit was found - a three week old
rotting red cabbage which was distinctly past its sell by date - yummy.
This was soon confined to the depths and bingo, ....no smell.

The days are very hot now and apart from the lack of sleep, we are all
starting to crave the nights when the temperature is much more bearable.

The winds are sadly dropping further which means the sailing turns into
more of a wallowing game, generally in a down wind fashion. Hey ho, it
would be rude to complain.

Probably 3-4 sun rises and sun sets to go now, and then we will be back in
reality....Brexit.......world news(which is never good),.....global
anxiety.... and accurate time. Not quite sure what time zone we are in at
the moment...we are working on or own which seems to keep pace with day
and night.

May be the best thing to do is to stay bobbing around the ocean for the
foreseeable future. Sometimes, particularly at night, it all feels a bit
surreal, specially when you are helming with no moon, looking the
instruments, which are the only things you can see. It all could be a very
large computer game. We have only seen one other boat since leaving
Mindello, 1200+ miles ago,.... still a long cool beer or two and a full on
shower sounds like heaven....so we will cope with reality.

Saturday: All those feelings of smug complacency " the we've only got
three days to go feeling", have gone. At 2300 last night, after a squall
had just passed through, the halyard on the zero snapped and deposited the
sail in the water. Thankfully we managed to retrieve it and rig it again
using spin 2 halyard. The bad news was that three hours later, this one
snapped and again sent the zero into the drink, which is very disturbing.
It was only installed in Las Palmas and we are not sure if the splicing
failed or once again, like the first time, we were a victim to chafe.
Whatever the reason,the zero was unceremoniously bundled into the sail
locker and we are now batting along on a two reefed main and one reefed
genoa.

Never a dull moment - why do cock ups always happen at night?

All a bit tied today - not a lot of sleep and a fair amount of adrenaline.
Lots of breeze today. Looks like we reach St Lucia by Tuesday lunchtime

All the best

Derek and Anita.