Leixoes 41 10 2N 8 42 35W
Web Log of Yacht Archangel
Mike Walsh
Wed 20 Jul 2011 22:38
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...yes, it is pronounced Layshoinsh... but we don't know why...
maybe it's because... (answers on a postcard please addressed to the
ship c/o Shepards Marina in Gibraltar where we will collect and
review them in one month's time...) This fourth instalment brings
you up to date... Leixoes is our current port of refuge... and the only gale blowing between Iceland and the Equator is blowing here... The Captain, curious as to why we had found so little sun and so much wind and rain on this trip, sent the Assistant Rigging Second Officer (ARSO... we think he may have Japanese ancestry somewhere in his lineage...) up the mast to see if the problem could be resolved... ARSO found a very large black cloud with its very own weather system underneath it caught on the VHF Ariel... shake it as hard as he could, ARSO couldn't release it... so here we stay for now, with the Chief Engineer polishing winches and stripping teak upstairs whist the Chief Victualling Officer and Ship's Housekeeper re-organise the bar and the lockers and wardrobes downstairs... the decision having been made that the raised expectation of a sunshine holiday with the occasional day of domesticity is much more realistically tolerated if the event is treated as a domestic exercise with the occasional day of sunshine... Indeed, the Captain's promise that the weather will improve '...after the next headland...' is wearing a little thin after the 532nd headland was passed on the way in here... so much so that even the Captain has noted that we are in mid-July, almost on the same latitude as Majorca, and it feels like Skegness on a wet Tuesday in November, and wonders if it will ever improve... So the whole ship's company sits around the large saloon table on Archangel, ship's seamstress optimistically making summer tops (Silly!) whilst Chief Comms Officer updates this blog... and the rest of the crew sing 'Blow the Wind Northerly' in 14-part harmony, accompanied by the soft summer rain drumming gently on the cabin roof in a fog shrouded Leixoes whilst the wind howls eerily through the masts and rigging... welcome to Summer 2011!!! |