Noon position
22:19.5N 21:14.5W
Days run a still
unimpressive 124nm
Well day five and
we’re still rolling along. We had a bumpy night last night, the wind was between
30 and 35kts for most of the night which isn’t a problem in itself as we’re
going downwind, but it does create a big swell of between 3 and 4 metres which
isn’t so nice. We’re probably better off than a monohull as we don’t tend to
roll around too much but even so it’s pretty uncomfortable. We reefed the sails
quite deeply (i.e. made them smaller) before dark last night to reduce speed and
make things a bit less noisy which helped a bit.
The wind’s dropped a
bit now to around 20-25kts but the swell’s still there, hopefully as we get
further south that will improve – we heard another yacht on the radio earlier
which is down around 15 degrees north, i.e. right in the trade wind area, and
they say the conditions are wonderful. Grrrr. Never mind, we’re getting
there…
On a more positive
note the fish we caught last night (which I told you was a dorada but is
actually a dorado, a dorada being the Spanish name for a type of bream – a
dorado is also known as mahimahi or dolphin fish) was lovely. Since my fillets
looked like they’d been involved in some sort of accident we cut them into
chunks, dusted them in seasoned flour and shallow fried them in butter and olive
oil. Scrummy. Gordon Ramsay would no doubt charge you £25 for the same thing
while swearing at you and the fish could never be as fresh. On the other
hand he wouldn’t cover the back of your boat with blood and guts and shake you
up and down while you ate your dinner, so I suppose there are plus points to
either approach.
And here at last is
the ham, being demonstrated by my glamorous assistant. Doesn’t that just make
you salivate?
