DAY 10 - ALL AT SEA

Adventure_iceland
Fri 8 Aug 2008 19:21

Another two days gone and its time for another blog from White Watch. Unlike the other watches we are blogging every two days. So what has happened in the last 48hrs or so……

 

Well we did our 24hrs on mother watch relatively uneventful since we were still in the high pressure system so sailing along flat and slow a good chance to catch up on some washing and sleep. To keep the trend with previous blogs you will want to know what we cooked for evening meal we did a lamb curry which went down very well with our very own special potato salad to go with it.

 

During our Mother watch since it was so quiet on deck Windy and the Skipper set about or own version of the Olympics, including five challenges. These being General Knowledge (about the yacht) questions including, how much fuel do we hold, what is our call sign and how tall is the mast among others. A Strength challenge seeing how long you can hold two dead weights, an Agility/Speed challenge to see how fast you can move around the boat whilst carrying water, a Pain threshold challenge seeing how many cloths pegs you can put on each watches faces and finally a Knot challenge, (no we are not into bondage, knots is an essential part of sailing) to see home many knots from the Comp Crew Syllabus we can use. Needless to say White watch came away with gold leaving the other two watches in our wake. We just need now to find out what our prize is, this is being kept very secret for now.

 

 

 

Since finishing Mother Watch we have been back sailing the yacht and are around 24 hrs into our 48 hrs of 4hrs on 4hrs off. The weather has changed and we were on a dead run followed by now being on a broad reach with 25 knots of wind coming over our Starboard Quarter with a ENE wind as such we are getting some good speed in the correct direction, with White Watch throwing the gauntlet down to the other watches for the most distance covered over our 4hr watch getting 41 miles. We have also been competitive in who can get the most speed in own watch I (Dave) set the early lead by getting 14.2 knots out of the boat then they wouldn’t let me back on the helm saying they need to catch me up. Since then I’ve been left trailing with Rachel leading getting 16.1 knots, Khush 15.0 knots and Ram getting 14.6 knots, rest assured I will make sure they let me have a go this afternoon and take the lead again. The other watches are frantically trying to keep up!!

 

We have kept up our wildlife spotting seeing several large pods of whales and have seen today puffins which must be a local bird from Greenland. A further point to note is the sea temperature has dropped some 5 degrees in the last 24 hrs to 9 degrees; we are all interested to see our first sight of icebergs

 

During our last watch we hit our latest way point Cape Farewell 75 miles off the southern point of Greenland (so far off to miss the ice coming around the East coast) so we have now crossed the Atlantic and have completed 1615 n/miles through the water a bit more over the ground. We have another 90 miles to go to our next way point and then we start tracking up the West Coast of Greenland, we have 500 miles left in total to go so around another 4/5 days wind and ice permitting.

 

That’s it for now I’m being called to go back on watch and looking forward to another drenching!! and a chance to take the lead in the fastest helmsman on the yacht.

 

By the time of our next blog we should have spotted land and be going up the Greenland coast and nearly there!! (Editor's note: might take a bit longer methinks) I think we are all wishing this could go on for another few weeks (not really Emma honest).

 

Regards

 

Dave on behalf of White watch (Rachel, Dave, Ram and Khush).

 

 

From left to right Rachel, Windy (Mate), Dave and Khush. Ram is missing as he is behind the camera. That will be rectified for the next blog.

 

PS – Our resident lonely heart has had a couple of e-mails however any young ladies with GOSH and happy for a long distance relationship please e-mail him.

 

PPS – Chris, Rachel is feeling neglected and lights up with hope every time there is mention of an e-mail for White watch so please e-mail her again!!