" A LADY TRIP" Sailing around the World, ( presently sailing south in the Pacific towards the Equator and Equidor)
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Wed 10 Feb 2010 12:01
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TUESDAY 9th FEBRUARY 2010
We forgot to mention the fish we never saw
yesterday.It must have been massive, cause when he grabbed the bait, the rod
nearly broke
under the strain, Skipper tried to take the rod out
of the holder to reel him in, but failed , then tried to reel him in while the
rod was still
in the holder, but failed again, then after 10
minutes SNAP, and the bugger was gone plus half the line and the lure as
well.
The one that got away.
00.00hrs ( midnight ) Kevin came on watch and
relieved the Skipper, We are basically going through what is known as the "
I.T.C.Z "
( Inter Tropical Convergence Zone ) Known to us
going to school hundreds of years ago as " The Doldrom's"
It means for us , light variable winds or no wind,
and seering heat.
04.00hrs Fat's and Aileen took over watch till
08.00hrs and had nothing to report, other than a couple of fishing
boats.
09.00hrs The skipper found a small little bird on
the chart table, obviously damaged or bruised having managed to negoiate his way
onto the chart table without anyone on watch notice
him,
He looked like a swallow , but had long legs and
webbed feet, real cute. we put him on the aft deck, but he managed to make his
way down
under the cockpit table and parked himself for the
day.
Amazing thing. we got lots of emails regarding the
resignation of George Lee from F.G. A sad day For F.G. in political
terms.
Its great to be away from all that
stuff.
09.00hrs Fats made contact with a number of fellow
yachts on our trip, but the radio still acting up.
Later the skipper got the tools out and eventually
fixed the pissy little leaks in the watermaker.and Fat's set up the rod again
for another
shot at fishing.
13.00 Lunch consisted of last night's left over
beans on toast, prepared by Kevin ( a first) However there is no way we can
turn
him into a gourmet chef. just no
way...
15.30hrs, We came across fishermen in a 20' timber
fishing boat, they were long line fishing 30 miles off shore in that little
boat,
anyway they asked for water so we gave them a litre
bottle and they were real happy with that.
We had lots of showers during the day, plenty of
clouds that looked threatning everywhere.
but thats to be expected here in this region, This
mixed with bits of stress dished up now and then made for a shit day
overall.
Kevin and the skipper tidied up some things from
the stb, cabin and put them into the " Lazerette" phew!
17.00hrs, Our visitor ( the bird ) regained his
energy and flew off into the fading sunlight. ahhhhhh, skip was sorry to see him
go.but thats life....
18.00 hrs Still sailing along , but progress was
very slow we wereonly making 4.5 knots in a light breeze on the nose.and a
foul tide of 1 knot to boot.
19.30hrs Fats made the dinner , The second half of
the stew we had a few nights ago, plus some pasta.
The night shifts :- 21.00 to
00.00hrs............Kevin
00.00 to 04.00hrs............Aileen and Fats
04.00 to 08.00hrs............Skipper ( Stephen)
During the first watch, we had some amusing
incidents, projected heavy showers on the radar, plus wind shifts causing
piroutes
and then Alarms going off in the computer, It was
just that kind of day..
Signed .. Stephen Hyde, (
skipper)
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