Monday, 9 Dec. 15.30.040N 51.39.22W

Alcedo
David Batten
Mon 9 Dec 2013 20:36
We had a comfortable night as a result of decreasing our sail area prior to darkness setting in, including on Jane's watch when it blew 25/26 knots. In the morning, we unrolled the twin headsails again and Sally had a lovely watch surfing at 10 knots on occasions while Greggie tried to film flying fish. They immediately became very elusive and only appeared in parts of the sea he was not looking at.

The ship's boy (Venetia), is feeling a little over worked, having baked bread and cooked supper yesterday, been "tied to the helm all night" (no one else thinks this was the case) and done her duty as rubbish monitor this morning. She is now cleaning the cooker. We think the skipper will need to be less strict on the social half hour refreshments to reward her today.

We have just been treated to the most wonderful fishing demonstration from what we think is a Brown Booby, wheeling around the boat and diving on the starboard side for flying fish. Fortunately for him, he was a great deal more successful in his efforts to catch them than Greggie was with his efforts to film them. What a gift for us.

We have had company this morning for the first time for days. Pleasure craft "Imagine" has overtaken us to starboard, motoring at 13 knots. Clearly a very smart gin palace on her way to the Caribbean for the winter.

We have just hit the 550 miles to go mark, so fingers crossed that we can continue with something like a 6 knot average.

Alcedo
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