Day 4
Beoga's Madventure
Henry and Marina Lupton
Wed 25 Nov 2009 17:02
|
ok so yesterday was really Day 3.
I think there is a supermacs up ahead. We had some
company overnight but split up during the day. converging again now at 3 in
afternoon with a 116 foot schooner crossing within 1/4 mile in front of us under
full sail- very impressive.
A Swan 53 Nauta D has been gybing back and forth
behind and now in front of us. They are taking angles presumably for speed and
comfort. We are pretty much dead downwind under single reefed main and poled out
genoa. Decided to try this configuration to see if it was stable enough to use
it at night. So far we've only had a few situations where the Betsy the
autopilot couldnt manage. I think we will head at an angle tonight to stop it
ranging about and rolling everything on board about.
The Vikings are close!
Lina 4 is a Norwegian Bavaria 39 that is close by.
These guys were our neighbours on the marina in Las Palmas. 4 lads with bikes!
Technically we should be well ahead of them but we are busy reading books and
enjoying weather we have not seen in an age.
Loads of Norwegians doing the Arc, most with small
kids on board. Obviously the maritime tradition continues strong up
north.
Lots of lounging on deck today is now followed by a
dash of activity before dark. Marina is peeling spuds. Lara and Joan have
finished their diaries and refuse to give me column inches for the blog-
hmmmmmm. They are now recharging camera batteries- more evidence me
thinks.
Been dangling our legs in the sea this afternoon-
really warm water. Might explain the appearance of the first flying fish (or
swimming bird if you are to believe some family members!). The 'creature' was
about 6 or 7 inches long and popped out beside the boat landing about 10 feet
away.
What I think was a turtle, also spun and dove
beside us. Good that we can actually spot stuff without Pascal or Niall on board
(makes me wonder what we are missing).
Saw a few birds too- those who havent seen the
animated movie UP dont get my "Point" call- Joe will need to explain it to them.
Indeed the cone of shame has been mentioned as a way to stop our towed recharger
if we ever use it. Hector was tried on the leg to the canaries , its a propellor
on a long rope attached to a motor tied to the boat. The propellor spins to
charge the batteries. However recovering it is a challenge cos the rope all
spins up and snarls you when you try to pull it back in. I meant to put a hole
in a bucket that the rope can pass through and when it floats down the the
propellor stops it spinning making it easier to reel in. Clear as mud huh?????.
bet you are now wondering if you couldnt be spending your time doing something
more constructive that reading this.
Despite the small environment and few numbers Lara
managed to avoid washing yesterday and was sent off to do the necessary this
morning. Reminds me I havent checked the water situation- obviously she was
trying to sneak it in. She met lots of folk in Las Palmas but none of them was a
hairdresser. The ships scissors may need to be utilized.
Didnt get a rally position report yesterday and
given the boats nearby and our daily mileage I reckon 'tis just as well.
All the mail gets send and received in one go, I'll
send this blog along with weather requests and will receive a seperate Arc
weather forecast ( i hope) and position report (i hope not) along with weather
reply from mailasail.
Music for the first time today. I happened to empty
some CDs from my car when Dad took it the night we left Galway docks for Spain.
Just as well cos we can't connect the IPOds. However the collection is limited
and I suspect will get old pretty quickly.
It seems we have a few movies on a memory thingy so
there is talk of a movie some evening soon. The nights are much longer than the
days- sounds familiar huh?
We went on local time the night we left since
the Canaries are on Spanish time but are quite westward. So we immediately went
an hour behind Galway and will lose and hour every 15 degrees west we travel -
Marina tells me we will be 2 hours behind tonight so I guess we are making some
progress westwards. We should also cross the Tropic of Cancer tonight some time
quite a ways south from home.
So we run out of sun at around 6 local time and we
have been trying to get dinner cooked by then. Strange that you feel like
heading to bed almost immediately. Knowing you have to wake for a 2 hour watch
in the middle of the night is an incentive to catch up on sleep. By the same
token you tend to linger after sunrise so we actually only get full sail up
after breakfast which takes about 3 hours by the time enough of us are ready. As
you can tell we are in serious racing mode. As I type the cockpit floor if full
of women reading books. We finally realised that getting low is more
stable.
This has been another rambling one -
Position for google map is 23:35.48N
23:20.01W pretty cool that we are at 23 North 23 West except that we are meant
to be way further on- oops.
Marina has a waypoint called "Turn Here" that we
are aiming at. Others are taking angles but we are rolling our way down a dotted
yellow line on a map.
Some evidence of trade winds around in the form of
lanes of puffy clouds just like wot it says in the book.
Quote of the day from Marina.
A man goes out an buys the slowest form of
transport known and then spends a fortune trying to make it go faster.
and on that philosophical note I will return to
some more Pitch - Roll and a ton of Yaw.
|