5th May
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Fri 5 May 2017 16:26
The wind is still from the East and mostly F4 to 5 with the occasional rain squall, but we’re making reasonably good progress hard on the wind on starboard tack. Eddy at least will be familiar with rolling away and un-rolling the jib every hour or so. James is navigating alongside the GPS by sextant, taking sun-sights. This has now expanded to include moon-sight and star sight as the sun’s declination is so close to our latitude that it’s always due E or due W so sun-run-sun doesn’t work.
The sea legs are beginning to kick in and the routine is becoming easier. Our watch system is our usual 3 hours on 3 hours off at night, with a more relaxed timetable during the day. We have fitted into this the radio transmissions: sorry Jon we tried yesterday but there was just too much activity on 14MHz to hear you. Blacklock continues to be alongside us and it’s a comfort to see other sails.
Other parts of our day include checking the deck for fitting wear and tear, chafe (and dead flying fish), and checking below for stowage, hatch leaks and the vegetable nets. We had to buy our fruit mostly from the supermarket in St. Martin as on the French islands there isn’t really a local market with local produce - easier to take a dole cheque from France. But fresh vegetables have the advantage over refrigerated stuff as it keeps weeks longer. However the Super U veg and fruit that need checking daily for decay (If we don’t catch the veg in time they rot and then drip rotting juice all over everything below the net).