Day eight already!

Adonde
Neil & Tracy Batcheler
Tue 26 Dec 2006 15:46

Noon position 19:42.5N 26:16.7W

 

Day's run the worst so far!! 104nm!! Tomorrow will be better! We were hoping for 150 miles per day!

 

Ah, Boxing Day.  Perhaps another round of present exchanging with the relos, a day at the races, or maybe even a lovely walk in the countryside followed by a nice pint, an old film on the telly in the afternoon and cold turkey and pickles for tea... Or how about another day at sea?  Yes, we're still plodding along, but today has dawned bright and sunny (and HOT), the sea is much calmer (that's a relative term), the wind an acceptable force 3-4 and we have successfully deployed the gennaker for a bit more speed.  But talk of gennakers and such is probably a mystery to most of you, so here’s a piccie of what it looks like anyway:

 

 

 It went up OK this morning, it’s getting it down again when the fun starts!

 

In case you're wondering here's a rough idea of what we do all day:

 

We are lucky enough to be part of a smallish group of boats who all left at roughly the same time so we have a radio "sched".  Someone from one of the other boats organises this, so at 1000 and 1800 we all report in our position, speed and heading.  We can see how well or otherwise people are doing and if anyone has a problem (none so far) we could organise some help.  This is typical of cruising yachts as we all look out for each other, even though we don't know some of the other boats. 

 

So our day follows this pattern; the 1000 sched., the noon plot which can best be done once a day because of the scale of the chart.  From which we get our dismal day's run figure, always eagerly awaited and good for morale!  This would once have also been the noon sight in the days of sextants, before GPS.  After this comes, surprise, surprise, lunch for which we are both present, then we have an afternoon of loafing, napping, very important and indepth reading, computer games, grazing, more dozing, hopefully some sunbathing etc etc.  After this a blog might be composed and sent, a weather map downloaded and emails checked. Phew, that's the afternoon dealt with.  All of which leads us to the 1800 radio sched followed by dinner and the beginning of the night watch system which we start at 2000, when one of us goes to bed.  We do 3 watches of 4 hours each, which then takes us throught to 0800, which is breakfast for the one getting up and bed time for me, and only 2 hours from the next radio call-in.  Looks like a packed schedule doesn't it?  Of course, don't forget we are doing all that stuff with the sails and snuffers and tweeters as well. 

 

We are only really now getting into the swing of things as it was quite blowy for the first few days and your main priority is not being sick, getting in the still warm bed as soon as possilbe after your watch and hoping those waves get a bit smaller!  Now, hopefully, we are getting towards the area where the trades (winds, not painters and decorators etc) are more consistent and we have much more comfortable sailing.

 

So that's it for now, no dolphins today but you can't have everything.  Perhaps later we can enthrall you with tales of What We Had For Dinner Today.....