Day 26 - We are getting there - honest
andromeda of plymouth
Susan and Andrew Wilson
Fri 17 Dec 2010 16:09
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We are now at the point where our emotions keep see
sawing a bit up and down as the wind either fills in or dies away. We now
have under 400 miles as the crow or gps measure it - hip hip hooray but it all
depends on the wind. Last night saw us all nursing every bit of speed from
the wind, we started off after dinner when I hit on the idea that we could
encourage Andromeda and Vanessa with a little incentive (you have to remember we
have been out here a while now). I decided that if the boat speed reached
4.5 we would all whooop.......well this had almost instantaneous results so I
had to make some new goals. The next was that we would sing 'zippedy doo
dah' when we reached 5 knots.......again it wasn't long before that was
sung..........next we decided on 'congratulations' if we reached 5.5 and so we
did and just before heading off for bed at first watch we had a couple of
renditions of 'Swing low sweet chariot' for hitting 6 knots. I shall leave
the scene to your imagination but it is hard now not to watch the speed and
burst into song. Unforturnately halfway through our sleep the wind
dropped and for a while there was nothing at all so on went the engine for a
while. Its a real dilemma what to do - we have a very limited amount of
fuel left now and certainly can't motor all the rest of the way but we do try to
use it to keep up our speed when under 5 knots - today we will be putting the
last of the cans in that will be all we can do. During the night as we
changed over at each watch we recounted the highs of the previous 3 hrs, you
would not believe how exciting it can be to be barely moving at 3.2/3.5 knots
when you manage to catch a gust and suddenly you go over 4 knots. We all
concentrate really hard on keeping eveything going and wait anxiously each noon
time to see how many miles we did the previous 24 hrs. Most days we do
more that we expect to so feel really good but sometimes you think you have had
a really good sail and the wind has been with you but you don't cover the miles
you think. We were quite disappointed when we had all the really big winds
and felt like we must have gone loads of extra miles but because we were being
pushed around and up and down so much it was actually one of the shortest
distance covered. Then again we do get surprised, we now all have a guess
at what the number will be just before we check the log and gps. Andrew is
particularly good at being spot on but we are getting better and it will be
interesting to see how many 'boat miles' we do as against the rhum line
measurement of approx 2700 miles from the Canaries to St. Lucia.
The food situation is still really good with some
really inventive menus being put together. Last night we had a tuna and
bean salad which was really delicious and we are looking forward to lunch today
as we have some great leftovers to polish off. I made another big load of
coleslaw and still have the ingredients for another batch tomorrow and will also
be making some more bread. I am really pleased with all the
provisioning we did over the months. We started back in Lagos last April
but by doing it this way we have a great variety of stuff on board and plenty of
it. We will be eating our last apple today but still have oranges and a
lovely butternut squash to attack. We also had a proper bacon and egg
bacon and even have one more packet left. Those of you who know how many
bags of crisps I had on board will be suprised to know that the hammock is still
half full so we will still have plenty for cocktail hours when we arrive and the
tea bags are holding our well too.
So at the moment we are zipping along with Trillion
our Parasailor up and keeping us going 5.8knots over the ground, the sun is
shining, the sky is blue and the water is warming up in the solar shower for a
lovely wash later on..................don't you wish you were here?
No prizes for working our who has written the blog
today. Off to enjoy the sunshine.
Andrew &
Susan, Nick and Phil, aided by Vanessa the Windvane, Trillion the Parasailor and
occasional appearances by Orion the Auto pilot
S/V Andromeda |