Week Two to Antigua
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sun 1 Mar 2020 18:00
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5:29.32 S 26:10.40 W
Second Week at Sea to Jolly
Harbour, Antigua
  After fourteen days at sea we have
covered 1539 nautical miles. Our average for this week has been 3.7 knots, much
slower than last week but there you have it, at least it was all sailing.
Today the sun is shining hot and the sea remains
calm with a gentle roll side to side. The wind is being a bit fickle so we have
taken to motoring. Sunday and Monday’s pretty non-existent
sunsets.
The shape of our week. On Sunday
night our little friend came to sleep on the Hydrovane cover and his mate slept
on the top solar panel. At first light Bear went for the camera but he squawked
and flew off in a huff.
Monday. Bear rigged
up the generator to take some of the charging load. Carbonara for Bear and fish
fingers for me, the quest is now on to empty the freezer (save on electricity –
may take another week or so). Sooty (I got in first naming him), well that stopped him being called something to do with his
rear-end offerings.... Naturally his wife had to be called
Soo.....returned to overnight with us.
 Tuesday. Bear
enjoyed pie, mash, sprouts, the last of the frozen peas and lush gravy. I had my usual yoghurt, apple and chia
seeds. I got up at 18:00 to find that we have completed 1001 nautical miles.
YAY. Happy Picture.
  Wednesday. A lovely
sunny day. Bear ate Mystery and Rice, somehow the label had worn off. I spiced
it up a bit and gave him a side of yoghurt and cucumber. I fancied ‘happy food’
and cooked myself sausages, eggs and baked beans. The plan is to put in much of
our westing until we are about three hundred miles off the Brazilian coast and
then head north, the hope then is that the
Doldrums / Equator crossing will only take three days. Getting fluffier Happy Pictures.
 Thursday. “Put the
table up so I don’t have to listen to you” that’s a classic and must be quoted,
said only after one of Bear’s Bearisms... He was then sent to ‘fiddle’ with the
mast rigging to stop the awful EEE EEE EEE, could drive me mad. He succeeded in
turning it into the odd rrr rrr. See Pepe look much happier. A shy Happy Picture but the snoring was anything
but......
 Oooooo something appeared on the AIS
at midday for the first time in nearly eleven days sixteen miles off, a
fisherman called Artur E Teresa (left of
line and 33 metres x 8 metres x 4 metres) from Calexero doing 7.8 knots. Just as
we were playing our daily game of backgammon another vessel, this time coming
toward us called Ridgebury Astari. A tanker
(right of the line) doing 4.5 knots (274 metres x 48 metres x 16 metres) on her
way, to ZA PLZ, ooo wish I could access the internet to find out the port code
name....she left from BS FPO and she to arrive on the 9th of March. Since typing
this I received an email from dear friends Chris and Steve (Scott-Free)
who looked the ports up for me. BS FPO is Freeport, Grand Bahama and I should
have known ZA PLZ as Port Elizabeth, South Africa – thank you both xx
xx.
 Just before sunset Artur E Teresa came up behind
us, turned right and settled to drift for the night. On we went and
didn’t see her again. Overnight, while the engine was on charging I watched a
two hour documentary called In Search of Beethoven and thoroughly enjoyed
myself.
Friday. I came out at ten o’clock to - If
we take our journey from Cape Town then we are just over half way with 2720
nautical miles to go. Did that make me feel warm and fuzzy ????
Sooty has
shat everywhere, all over the generator, deck and I’ll have to wash the port
side solar panel just to let it do it’s job. I didn’t like to admit
to a couple more joining our little feathered friends so I settled the skippers
feathers with pasta bake and a large glass of wine....
 At 15:00 more excitement, this time
in the shape of a tug called John Coghill en
route for Chaguaramus in Trinidad, due in on the 13th of March. Her vital
statistics are 79 metres x 16 metres x 4 metres and she is trotting along at 9.3
knots.
  Bear put sixty litres of diesel in the main tank........
 ......and delved in the anchor locker
for more petrol for the generator. The combination
with the engine is working well.
At night all hell broke loose and I
came out at two in the morning to find Bear shining a torch at the wind
generator. I’m trying to stop your friends,
huh, if you hadn’t have shown me Sooty in the first place hiding behind your
chair this would not have started...., whatever, they
each take it in turns to try to land and many of them get a smack from one of
the blades.
 Sooty, far
left (I know as he has a white mark on his beak and scruffy trousers – probably
since I had him on my lap wrapped in a tea towel. Soo is next to
him.
 After the captain had taken to his
bed I worked out that being the weekend, Sooty has invited some of his mates to
a party on board and one of the initiation games is the wind generator
challenge. I counted eleven of them. Goodness knows what moaning the skipper
will do when he sees the poop on the morrow.... Anyhoo there is Sooty and Soo,
Stan and Sylvia, Sydney and Samantha (Sid and Sam now
I know them), Stuart and Sybil, Solly and Simone (from Brazil) and Sally
the singer and all-round entertainer. When I went to bed at six I found Solly
and Simone sleeping above the en suite window, preening feathers all over the
floor, well I hope that’s what they were up to.....
  What made me laugh most was they all
sleep exactly a foot apart and all face seaward. The
top picture is three of the four on the boom, the lower one evidence of the poop
problem.
  Saturday. With
plenty of tooting and bleating, and with a few well chosen curse words, Bear got
the power hose out to deal with the poop. I cleared thee feathers from the
toilet floor. I gave the skipper an extra tangy beef curry and rice with a cold
beer. We are now 620 miles due East of Natal, Brazil. I woke at 17:30 to see
sunlight glimmering through a two inch rip in the genoa a little way up. I had
Bear lay on the bed and used the lower tell-tails to guide him to the said rip.
More muttering as he prepared, with life jacket and two squares of patches. He
lowered the genoa, stuck the patches each side and
all returned to being well. Sooty and Soo were seen flying off to our right.
I suppose that’s to stop us getting away. I
think they partied so hard last night that hangovers made tonight a quieter
affair and it did rain heavily for a couple of hours in the night. We swapped
sides and the genoa swinging through stopped the dancing until they all settled
on the right railing and solar panel.
Sunday. I offered
the fact that all the terns will have to get up early for work tomorrow.
Huh. I better do pie and trimmings with
mushroom gravy and sprouts to calm the skippers very ruffled feathers......
At 15:00 we had our first proper
squall. Big dollopy rain for an hour as we entered the ICTZ, fine rain for
another half an hour, now flat calm motoring through The Doldrums.
We have played each
day and our totals for the year now read:-
Backgammon: Bear 27 and me 26, now you have gone up to US$ 141..... and your point
is as you are one ahead......
HUH.
Mex Train Doms:
Bear 8 and me 13. Double
HUH.
 Bear took this
lovely sunrise sky this morning.
ALL IN ALL FUN WITH THE
TERNS
AND GETTING A LOT
HOTTER |