Wednesday 9/3
Sweetest Thing
Anthony Richards
Wed 9 Mar 2011 12:10
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Less than 150 nm to Madeira, we are aiming to
arrive at first light tomorrow morning. From yesterday afternoon and through the
night the wind built and built with lots of lightning around us. By this morning
we had F8-9 (gale to severe gale) so we have the mainsail down and a small scrap
of jib out, running downwind making good progress. We are at the centre of the
low and our forecast suggests that is will move with us down to
Madeira.
The cresting waves have the most beautiful
aquamarine blue tops. A bit of sun is shining through to give a brilliant
rainbow to the west of us.
Yesterday evening we had three House Martins fly
onto the boat for refuge. They kept going into the saloon cabin so we caught
them and put them in a cockpit locker for shelter. This morning another flew
right into Alexa's chest and held on there so she put him into the locker
as well. After that another flew onto the boat but seems content to perch
outside.
Alexa saw a turtle this morning as we saailed past
him - she said he did not look too happy with the waves!
We had some dolphins mid morning doing fantastic
leaps, but only stayed a short time before I could film them.One did a leap
across the front of the boat that was about 3 metres high and 5 metres long -
amazing!
Position at 1200 UTC 9 March
34 38.367n
014 51.529w
24 hour run 157 nm
Wind NNW F5
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