Friday 25th July 2014
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Fri 25 Jul 2014 13:05
We're making good progress now as we have been blessed with a steady
southerly wind for a 24 hours or more. Having been about 20 miles behind
schedule we are now about the same ahead (shhh - it's tempting fate to
mention it). The weather has stayed fair and the rain for once has stayed
away and it has been was warm and dry enough to eat both lunch and supper in
the cockpit. The hull movement alters considerably once Awelina gets some
speed up, it becomes much easier to judge the movement in the cabin and
balancing a plate on your lap.
We turned on the short-wave again last night but the 14MHz band was silent
until about 7pm when propagation improved markedly and we heard stations
from all of Europe and some from the USA. We made contact with one from
Slovenia while hoping to pick up G4ABQ.
After a quiet night of steady progress James was fortunate enough to see a
pod of very large dolphins at around 6 am, the Atlantic white-sided variety
we think (. He estimated about 100 of them, however unlike our cetacean
friends in the Minch this bunch were into serious fishing and eating and
gave the boat no more than a cursory glance. But some hours later while
Leaning over the back of the boat to check some wind steering gear James
noticed a strange attachment to the transom at the waterline. At first it
looked like a bit of rope; on closer inspection it was a 2 foot long sucker
fish very firmly attached to Awelina's transom. It has a rather revolting
sucker on its head and seems to live upside down. It's still there, we shall
report progress. Looking in a book we think it's a Sea Lamrey - a disgusting
parasite but It won't get much blood out of fibre-glass!
Dawn arrived very early as we are now at 63 North, but we still have seen no
sign of any other human life either in boats or from the Icelandic mainland:
even the Navtex messages have stopped coming and no replies to us calling
the Marine Traffic Service (who we have to contact for permission to enter
the 12 mile limit) on VHF. Where is Iceland? According to our navigation we
are only 15 miles off the coast but can neither see nor hear it! Mind
you,signals from Portugal are getting through, maybe we've been going S not
North?
Final night tonight Cambridge Rowers, May you get a bump tonight and enjoy
the party. We're willing it not to rain on you. We hope to spend Friday
night in Vestmannaeyjar harbour, always assuming Iceland has not sunk like
Atlantis!