26d33.070N 018d00.020W
Yesterday evening there were yelps of delight when a school of dolphins surrounded the boat. Rob was off-watch too at the time and I was tempted to wake him as he had not seen them before. In fact he saw some later, jumping out of waves in the evening. Ah dolphin,shmolfin, theres plenty more fish in the sea....
Steering last night was rather interesting as we had a biggish sea coming over the quarter as we ran downwind with the genoa poled out. There were about 10 other yachts around us at one a.m. This morning I woke to the cheerful sound of he skipper saying "Let the f...... thing run free !"and protests from Dan that "it" was uncleated and free to run, then words about fingers and an almighty clunk. I deduced from this the pole had been reset successfully, and needed no further assistance.
Monday has been a bit tricky as we all got to grips with sailing at speed downwind in a crossing wave pattern of about 3 metres, and the odd bigger one of about five. The wind is about 21 knots. Unfortunately we cant trim to improve speed as the log was knocked off while being cleaned by a diver in Las palmas. But so far it has beena fast run, covering about 180 miles in 24 hours, or 150 over the ground. Just as Dan came on this morning and I was on the helm, we were hit side on by a big one, which showered the crew and went down the companionway. I have just finished cleaning out the bilges. Breakfast today was eggs on toast, with great bread made by Don.
We hit our dailywater allowance (15.5 litres) yesterday evening. We must do better. Seawtaer is now in use for cleaning ! It is hot and sweaty this afternoon,but still happy to be here !
TimD