Friday, 8th October 2010 (Day 12 at Sea)
Total distance from the Cocos Islands to Mauritius....................................2,313 miles
Distance remaining to Mauritius .................................................................222 miles
Weather..................................................................................Blue skies, blue sea's
Distance traveled in the last 24 hrs.............................................................197 miles
We had a great night at Sea, beautiful sailing conditions with a steady 18/20 knot breeze from the ESE pushing us along with the Blue spinnaker flying (the mighty Bag of Fear). We averaged 8.5 knots for the night. We did have an adverse current for a long period during the night, but on the other hand we saw no traffic or trawlers that required evasive action.
09.00hrs Radio Call :-Today, Drammer were duty net controllers, Hans & Emmy are sailing their boat on their own and are from the Netherlands. There are at least 4 boats on this trip that are being sailed by just husband and wife. Well done to them, this sort of trip not only needs a lot of courage, but a great belief in your own ability...
Most of the day was spent pottering around the boat, keeping in touch with other boats, emails, and the BLOG. As I said before, this blog is like having a pet, a dog, a rabbit, a parrot, or whatever, but, BUT, whatever, it has to be fed every day.
Lunch, actually a snack: we sat there in the cockpit in glorious weather and stuffed our faces with crackers and cheese, no alcohol as we are still at sea... Actually its a bummer not having wine with crackers and cheese. As Harry Fitzgerald one of our lecturers at college used to say to us in situations like that "Its like having a living room without a fire, or a bed without a woman".
17.00hrs We lowered the spinnaker as the wind had died down and the "Bag of fear" was swinging from side to side with the swell at the time, and in danger of wrapping itself around the forestay once more. We had enough of that a few nights to last us for the rest of the trip. We then set up a goosewing and sailed on.
18.00hrs Distance to destination....................................158 miles
We will arrive in Mauritius tomorrow, perhaps around lunch time, at least one day ahead of our ETA, thanks to the gales we had on the way.
Dinner consisted of :- Roast stuffed chicken, chicken rolls in puff pastry, and fried rice, by Aileen.
We listened to Tzaganie on the 6 pm radio and they were having roast beef. God bless England for their roast beef.
We had now a very strong current sweeping us south, the wind was getting very light, so we reved up the iron mainsail (engine) and motor sailed.
It was a magnificat evening, and the sun was a huge ball of fire going down over the horizon. Actually, we have often heard other crews talking about the green flash as the sun dissapeard below the horizon, but as far as we could make out, no one ever saw the thing. Well we did last night, just an instant flash, but skipper thinks it was caused by the suns rays catching the tops of waves in between us and the sun, but it was quite significant, we have looked out for this over the last 24,000 miles, and never yet saw it until tonight, and may never see it again.
Darkness fell and the stars were just splendid,yet again, a crystal clear night.
Watches :- 21.00hrs / 00.00hrs........................................ Terry
00.oohrs / 03.00hrs.........................................Skipper
03.00hrs / 06.00hrs.........................................Neil
06.00hrs / 08.00hrs.........................................Aileen
After 12 days at sea, we are nearly there (do you remember the kids in the car saying "are we there yet, are we there yet! "). So we are all excited at the thought of walking ashore in Mauritius tomorrow.
That's it for now.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)