Eating our way around the World ( presently at Sea between Reunion Island and South Africa )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Tue 2 Nov 2010 04:49
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MONDAY 1st NOVEMBER
2010
There is a Cyclone building around the Coco's
Islands,, and looks like being a catagory 3
This is a strong Cyclone, and has not been seen in
this area for a long time,
It seems that the Cyclone season has arrived early
with a bang. all because of the " Indian Ocean Dipole " which is simular to" El
Nino"
which we have all heard of over the years.
The waters of the ocean are warmer than normal and therefore cause the
weather
in general to be irratic, and this in turn also
affects the currents, which we know all about,
Right now we have a 3.2 knot current against us,
where as normally here the current would be with us , pushing us along
nicley.
01.00hrs Big clouds appear from the SW,
bringing with it lots of rain and stronger winds, all hands on deck and we
reefed
all sails
The wind shifted from the NW to West and then
SW all in the space of 30 minutes. now right on the nose, just bleedin
lovely !
07.00hrs We could see two of our own fleet close
by, later it turned out that these were " Arianne " and
"Tzagine"
We had a lot of shipping traffic all night , and
apart from the heavy shower, it was a nice night at sea.......
09.00hrs, Radio Call, We got the
position of all yachts, and we have recovered our position towards the front of
the fleet.
The conditions remained beautifull, except the wind
was in the wrong direction for us all. dead on the nose. this makes for
slow progress.
11.00hrs
Distance
travelled................................320 miles
Distance to waypoint............................229
miles
Lunch time, The barometer has dropped to
1010
the food was a Prawn and Avacado salad, with hard
boiled eggs, spring onions, cucumber, celery, luttice, grapes, and olives, plus
some
of Aileens boat made brown bread, and of course the
Marie rose sauce, yum, yum,
Entertainment ,, The fishing rod was working away
on its own at the back of the boat, while the rest of the crew played
"backgammon."
We altered course a number of times to keep within
a reasonable distance of the rum line.and did a couple of hours motorsailing as
well.
Later in the day, the wind increased to 25 / 30
knots fine on our port bow, so we got some good sailing for a
while.
The winds have shifted around more or less as
" Bruce" predicted, but we have much more wind than he
forecast.
the positive side to that is we have much more
sailing than expected.
Around dusk, the fishing rod went bonkers
again, ha,ha we got you this time, with our wire trace, there's no
escape.
well, thats what we thought, but, BUT,
thoughts can make a fool of you , and they did, 30 mins later . the fish was
gone again,
Ohhhhhh noooooo and with the lure as
well, can you believe that, the begger ate the wire trace. just like
as if it was cut off with a pliers,
no frayed ends,
Aileen cooked dinner, a lamb and beef
"spaghetti dish " which we ate in the " Moonlight Restaurant " it was excellent,
( have to say that anyway )
All this took up a good part of the
evening.
21.00hrs, The wind eased off again, so we
shook out the reefs, tightened up the sails and altered course 20 degrees
south,
The sea's were very flat and it looked as if we
will have a good night at sea again,
Thats all for today,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper
)
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