Thursday 24th July, 2014

Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Thu 24 Jul 2014 13:07
position here

61:44.86 N, 014:40.16 W

The better conditions we'd hoped for from the shipping forecast and the the grib files (wind and weather maps downloaded for several days) did not materialise for sometime. The Mordor-like murk deepened, the rain intensified and the rolling motion got more exaggerated. Engine and mainsail were the only combination which kept us moving so we motored on, albeit with slight misgivings about the rate of diesel consumption when staring at the big space still left on the chart between us and Heimay. The radar came into its own although we've actually seen nothing on it but rain squalls.

To pass the time we made mushroom stroganoff, Fiona threaded a string of chilli's to hang up in the cabin and James researched things to do ashore in Iceland. We began to consider the lack of time we might have for our tourism plans should the crossing take us longer than expected. We tried sailing but could only make around 2.5 knots would have put us in Iceland by Monday next week!

Radio 4 long wave is now inaudible but we tried to make short-wave radio contact with Jon. We were again unable to hear him at six at on our first choice of frequency band (40 meters, or 7MHz) but discovered that the 20m band (14MHz) was clear and we heard stations from all over Britain and had a conversation with "Jim from Largs", who had a special call sign in honour of the Commonwealth Games. We heard him encourage people in London, Walsall and Wales to watch the opening ceremony. On finding out we were mid crossing to Iceland he "supposed we probably" didn't have TV access. We wish him (and the Games and all involved) a good event. Tonight we'll be listening at around 14.180MHz.

At 2 am, at the start of James' watch, the wind freshened and finished up a decent force five from the south. We have been bowling along since then, sails drawing and engine very firmly off, making 7 - 8 knots. By at noon today we had caught up to our projected position for Thursday from the passage plan. It's now clear visibility and sunny. We have started to pick up Navtex messages from Iceland and Greenland, one warning of a huge iceberg 100m high. Since 9/10 of an iceberg is under the surface imagine how big that berg must be: maybe 1/8th the height of Mt. Everest!

To the people in the Cambridge town bumps, it's Thursday and time for that third night push: "10,9,8,7,6.....GUN". Thinking of you all. And we are getting the texts on the Iridium phone (but can't reply as the Iridium and normal mobile systems are incompatible).