Around the world with the Aqualunies
Jonathan & Gabrielle Lyne
Mon 8 Oct 2007 16:21
Left Tunisia four days ago on Friday morning, great sail at first. Asymetric up and hit 10 knots lots of yahooing. Weather changed late afternoon head winds increased to 35 knot overnight, staight into it, not the most comfortable time, this lasted until Sunday evening. Thunder and lightening all around but nothing too near the yacht. We could see the rain squalls heading towards us on the radar.
The amount of sea we had over the decks resulted in some water ingress into the forward port fuel tank, most probably caused by Jonathan not doing up the fuel top hard enough. So he has spent most of this morning with head in the engine, not too difficult as it's a good sized engine room, filtering off the water, the first time he has done it so pleased that it has cured the problem.
Today, Monday, dead calm sea, no wind. Have been getting very close to nature, Allan Dobson caught a 15lb Blue Fin Tuna. We have a Thrush sitting on our deck, very tired, on it's migratory route south, it's dozing away sitting in the shade, if it's sensible it will stay with us until we get to the Straights of Gibralter then it won't have so far to fly. We saw at first what we thought was a rubbish bag floating on the sea surface but then we saw hundreds of them, they are turtles also on their migratroy route east. A dragon fly has taken a liking to Allan's shorts and has been sitting there all morning. Early this morning we had Dolphins playing around the yacht.
Donald Hughes decided to buy a Jasmine plant in Tunisia so we have that sitting next to Basil, my only herb plant for the moment. So she was introduced to Basil and their relationship has flowered condsiderably since, even Basil has burst into flower. Their compeating perfumes have seen us through the storms of the last few days. They seem to like being entwined but so far are not routed together!!
We haven't seen a newspaper in two weeks now feel very much in our own little world, quite relaxing being away from all the British politics and sniping.
Was going to be a beef caserole with pasta tonight but the vote has gone down for fresh Tuna again....