Hi to everyone reading this and sorry for the
silence - it's not often that I'm at a loss for words.
Our crew have settled into life as a
family and we are (mostly!) a happy boat. Sharing one's home with former
strangers is always a bit of a leap of faith!
Yesterday the jib furling line
chafed in two places (the boys don't know why yet) and had to be
knotted together as an emergency measure, then replaced. This all, fortunately,
happened just before dark. But it was a great team-building exercise.
On the plus side we had a large pod of porpoises play
around us for a long time during Happy Hour - which was a perfect end
to what had been otherwise quite a stressful day for me.
The water maker is working well and as
usual meals are a highlight of the day. Lamb kebabs & couscous last night,
courtesy of Tom.
Claire's watch system (that we adopted in 2017)
is superb. Three night watches of four hours, and two day watches of six
hours, rotated around three. Everyone gets a fair dose of sunrises and
sunsets, and dinner and lunch rotate (not sure that's a good thing
though!!)
Sailing-wise, we stopped the wing-on-wing
southerly course yesterday as the butter was melting, and gybed onto 250
degrees, heading more or less straight for St Lucia. Today its a very
stately and rhythmic ride on the Atlantic swells, so much better than the
rolly-polly of dead down wind.
Although it's day 6, as of lunchtime today
we have had 5 days at sea. Another two weeks or so to
go. Happy so far! Now, where did I stow
the Gin?
Pete & Bee