Day nineteen, nuh nuh nuh, nineteen
Adonde
Neil & Tracy Batcheler
Sat 6 Jan 2007 19:46
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Noon position 14:18.2N 48:29.7W
Day's run an anticipated poor 111nm
Well we had closer look at those squalls last
night, though not through choice of course. It had been overcast all
day and shortly after dark and the start of watches a sudden and distinct
increase in wind was felt by yours truly (not THAT sort of wind) and with a
quick glance at the instruments inside, our speed was doubling then tripling
then, holy moly, was 12 knots before you could say oh no, not another night
of tedium. An involuntary squeak from me got Neil back out of bed pronto
and we were being lashed by 35 knots of horizontal rain as we rapidly
reduced sail dressed only in our birthday suits. That was a bit of a
surprise, and probably my fault, as not much earlier I had been musing on the
fact that we'd got this far without any squalls. Fortunately, what looked
like it might turn out to be a night without much sleep was bearable by being
able to monitor them on the radar and take evasive action.
So today has been a little brighter, and, with more
settled conditions, we once again have the Gennaker up, though progress is
slower than we'd like due to not much wind. There is still nothing to
look at (or should that be there still isn't anything to look at?) which is
getting a bit dull. We see only an occassional bird, a shearwater gliding
over the wave tops, or another, smaller type with a white rump and more pointy
wings (sorry, don't know what it is) but were very surprised yesterday to see a
small, yellow butterfly flutter past. Watching the birds and wondering how
they glide so close to the water without getting wet is amazing but a
butterfly?! Bit of a more serious proposition if they get it a little bit
wrong. And it didn't even stop for a rest; just had a little look around
the cockpit and flapped off. Isn't nature amazing!!! Why make such a
fragile little thing migrate over an ocean? Or maybe it was just
lost... Today's nature moment consisting of finding a rather stinky
(dead) flying fish on top of the bimini - that dismount would
definitely have got an 8.9 from the judges.
We'd also like to say WELL DONE to Malarkey, the
first boat in our group to make landfall, arriving in Bridgetown, Barbados
today. If you read this you jammy gits, please put the beers in the cooler
and save us a nice quiet spot in the anchorage as we would quite like to go to
sleep now please for more than 3 hours. Only problem is you might have wait a
few more days for us to catch up; think you can
manage?!
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