" A LADY TRIP " Sailing around the World ( today we leave Equador for the Gapapagos Islands)
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Fri 19 Feb 2010 04:54
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THURSDAY 18th FEBRUARY 2010
07.00hrs Up and at it, for today we leave
this place and delighted to do so'
And guess what, yeap , its pissing cats and dogs,
We went to the Yacht Club and had a
coffee,
08.30 We got a taxi to the shopping centre, ( about
2 miles ) to top up the veg and fruit.
Of course the bleedin place dident open till
09.00hrs and we were as wet as a bunch of langers thrown into the river in a
sack of spud's
Anyway we got our goods and the skipper managed to
get a metric no 17 spanner to replace the one that vanished out of his
tool box in crosshaven.
09.30hrs We arrieved back to the boat, loaded the
goods on board and immidiatly set about preparing to leave,
First we put the rib back into the water and then
lifted it out on the derricks at the back end of the boat.
We then untied ourselves from the Marina and with
the help of the bloke's in the punt, untied the bow lines from the bouys out in
the center
of the harbour basin,( which was pritty small ) and
we headed over to the Fuel Dock.
10.30 we were tied up loading on the deisel (
we took 550L or approx 120 US gls. our total capacity is 1040L or one
ton)
Christ ! the area around the fuel berth was covered
with floating deisel and thick brown gunge, yeach yeach
12.00hrs ( midday) we started the next leg .
heading west towards the Galapagos in a light 8 knot breeze,
There was a big swell running , but we were first
over the starting line and we were thrilled with our tactics.
However on a 520 mile trip, it really doesent
matter a shite where one starts, but we still think we are the best out
there.
15.30hrs The wind was still very light and the 4
catamaranes on our starboard side were now motoring and their headsails
rolled up.
18.30hrs, The breeze picked up and now we had
15knots of wind and sailing along at 7.8 knots
the wind being about 35 degrees on our port side,
Smashing sailing,
Fats cooked a pork chop dinner with spuds ,
cabbage, apple sauce and gravy, plus roast oranges and boiled white onions, How
about that !.
The Skipper got the blog up to date while Aileen
did the washup,
The night watches are tonight:-
20,00hrs to 00,00hrs Stephen and Aileen
00.00hrs
to 04.00hrs Fat's
04.00hrs to 08.00hrs Kevin
23.00hrs The wind at 40 degrees on port was up to
17 knots and we are sailing along 8 knots
The moon was in the early stages of developing and
was shimmering across the sea,
The phospherous from the wake of the boat was so
bright, it reflected the stars in the sky, just magic
sailing.
It brings back memories of sailing " Bunty " in
overnight races from Crosser to Baltimore or Schull
Tony Ryan, Joe Hawes, Rom , Jim keoghan , Dave
oRielly and others from time to time, braving the wild west on a light gaff
rigged boat
without a compass, lights , charts, ( we hardly
knew what they were ) or an engine, No such thing as railings or life
jackets for that matter
and amazingly enough , we survived, Today
health and saefty would lock us up if we tried that in these P. feckin C
times.
Oh , the " Bunty " leaked like a sive as well, just
to keep us on our toe's
Anyway, thats it for today.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (
skipper )
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