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Rhumb - Day 5 - Heading towards St Lucia and our first fish!!



Before we move into day 5, a few things to report from day 4. One of the reasons for another radio silence was John (blogger) succumbing to a nasty beastie buggie thing resulting in a very sore and painful throat and a touch of the hot and cold sweats for 24 hours. Crew members kindly allowed John time to recover by taking on his overnight watches, so I can report I am now feeling a bit better.

Day 4 saw us continuing south westerly to warmer climes and the trade winds, still experiencing strongish winds in the 30's. Midday we turned to a course of 270 degrees with a pretty awful gybe, taking us around an hour to get the pole set up to starboard. At the same time the mainsail got caught behind the topmost spreader, fortunately though with a slight change of direction we were able to free it. Given our abysmal attempt at the gybe, hopefully now we are on a fairly direct course to St Lucia not needing to attempt another one. The only downside though is that we are unlikely to have another attempt at beating our personal best.

Day 5 dawned with yours truly feeling a bit better and thankful for my sailing buddies for taking the strain for a while. One good thing that came out this was that they found it OK to operate one man 3 hour watches, giving each man 6 hours off. This is certainly better than our previous system where we found we were all unable to sleep when down below, but fell asleep whilst on watch up top.

A spot of breakfast first, with Tim putting together a concoction of nuts, berries, seeds, bran and compote - nothing like keeping it simple! He did so well in getting it into the same bowl and managing to get it up top whilst carrying his cup of tea and spoon. However, it was just a bridge too far, as his mixture slowly slid from it's perch and all over his shorts. We laughed - Tim didn't, but soon saw the funny side of it after a few expletives. Would have made for a great Kodak moment.

Subsequent of all the nuts, seeds and berries, Tim has been renamed Tweetie (aka Tweetipie), and I have taken over name of Sicknote1 (for the time being). Roger still remains as Roger - sorry Ian, you'll never get rid off it. And finally, judging by the look in Brian's eye's today (after only 4 nights away), he is strongly contesting the position of Master Bates. I suggest you make yourself scarce when we arrive in St Lucia Anne!!!

Oh, and nearly forgot, we landed our first fish of the voyage. Tim found a dear little baby flying fish on the deck, about an inch long, but threw it overboard before we could capture the moment on film.

As the day draws to a close and we make ready our evening meal of cottage pie tenderly and lovingly prepared by Anne, we can report wonderful conditions at last. Oilies gone, shirts off, shorts on, and down to just one reef in each of the sails. Considering the speeds we have made up to now with two reefs in both, this can only attest to the sailing capabilities of Rhumb - wish I could say the same of the crew - sorry old girl.

Rhumb over - N22.18 - W24.06

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