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Tommy - Log 7 - Flying



It literally feels like we are flying along at 8-10 knots, we’re watching the speedometer increase by the second. I’d say we each spend at least 30% of our day glued to the ever changing boat speed digits, organically taking shifts to monitor boat speed vs. wind speed and direction. Trimming sails accordingly to get the perfect balance. We get excited at anything over 8 knots now as we’ve been so use to plodding along at figures much less.   We’re determine to average 7 nm per hour which will enable us to keep up with our planned route. We have become obsessed with the speedo. I've popped in a waypoint and given ourselves 5 days to get there, we are now on day 3 and pretty much bang on target. Once we get to the waypoint in a couple of days we will then be on the home stretch to St Lucia, which will be about 1200 nm and take us approx. 7 days from the plotted waypoint. We’re aiming to get there on the 10th Dec, 5 days later than initially planned. We should definitely have enough food on board, our initial route was 16 days, I provisioned for 18 plus additional dry store food. We might be having a modest Italian lunch and supper for 2 days but at least we won’t starve. 

Unless of course we catch some fish!!!! With all the drama after the storm we haven't really been on our fishing game until a couple of days ago and the only activity happening are fish flying off the hook. We've “caught" 8 fish that never reached the stern of the boat. We’ve put it down to the fact that we’re going 8-10 knots and it’s too fast to reel in them in. A couple of them were some whoppers too, gutted to have lost them but our time keeping at the moment is more important than fish catching so we’re just not prepared to slow down to reel them in until we’ve made significant progress along our route. We’re persevering and dreaming of a fresh sushi supper soon! 

Speaking of flying and fish, we are constantly surrounded by flying fish. I’ve never seen anything like it, the first time I thought they were like sea swallows diving into the water until I realised where we were and the fact that the “swallows" weren't soaring back out the water. The sunlight bounces on their wings and shiny scales, as they flitter and fly about 3m along the surface of the swell and then disappear graciously into a wave. At first, when Jason mentioned about the flying fish in his previous transatlantic I just assumed they would pop up for a split second and bomb back into the water, I did not expect actual fish with wings that fly. Mind blown! Unfortunately, during the last coupe of nights some have flown into their death by landing on our deck and with no one up at the bow to toss them back in they ended up like stiff cat toys by the morning. Ted has been the ultimate scavenger and indulging in flying fish for breakfast. On watch last night a little fella landed at my feet, at first I was like “what on earth?” and then realised and tossed him back into the ocean. A good deed for the day done and I continue my watch knowing that I’ve saved a little fish from pruning to death. 

My eye, is healing well. There’s still an almighty bump above my eye brow and the bruising has circled around my eye so I look like a panda / someone who had a rough night and forgot to remove the 4 year old's make-up experiment from the night before. A quarter of my eye ball has also decided to bruise so have a pizza slice blood shot shape. The pain has gone and I thank the heavens as it all could have been much worse, an inch further down and it could have been my actual eye or further down my face could have been my teeth. My worst nightmare!

# of nautical miles (nm) travelled so far: 1642 nm
# of days travelled so far: 11

# of nm to go: 1696 nm
# of estimated days to go: 10

Fish “caught": 9
Fish landed: 1 tiddler
Dolphins: 2 pods at our bow
Flying fish on deck: 8


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