Wind
Blanshard
Tue 8 Jun 2010 17:42
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Position 39 42.20N 39 37.89W Log
reading 14061 distance covered 118 miles
It had to happen sooner or later. A good
following wind for 2 weeks was too much to hope for and though we have had a few
hours where it has died and then filled in this is different. 12 hours
with NO wind is tedious; flat calm with just a little swell to rock us. We
battled for yesterday evening with 3 knots boat speed but drew a line when it
dropped to less than 2. So, engine on, low revs and speeding forwards at 6 knots
at least keeps us moving in the right direction but the gamble is the wind fills
in soon as we do not have enough diesel to motor the last 390 miles to the
Azores. The wind dances are on. The sky is grey and feels humid, the
barometer is as high as it gets, nearly, so how long do we have to
wait?
Dietary intake, however, has been the healthy
option of tuna and more tuna. Pan fried last night with potatoes and
sweetcorn - no lemons so tried some orange ? Still half the fish to go and
I have been forbidden from fishing anymore until this is all gone.
The calm of last night was an amazing chance to see
how alive the ocean is. During the daytime it looks empty but at night
there are little starbursts of phosphorescence all around. Occasionally it
goes wild when presumably a fish moves through and then the stars jump out of
the water like tiny frogs - entertaining at 2 am!
The routine of watch keeping at night works well -
first watch from 9 (usually sundown, so 8 ish) to midnight favoured by the
Blanshards, dogwatch from 12 to 3 am favoured by no-one and then the
morning watch of 3 to 6 (usually 7 ish) favoured by James. With three of
us the rotation works well and then casual watch keeping during the day.
There is little to look out for as the last ship was sighted 2 days ago, but
always the hope of a whale or porpoises. Little to do in sail trimming and
the autopilot that was replaced just before we left is far superior to the old
one so is left to do much of the steering - how idle!
Lunch coming soon a la Alastair - not sure what the
teenagers concoction for the tuna will be, luckily there is not too much
chocolate on the boat!
PS we have tried uploading photos ( very compacted)
but the access is so slow that it seems to jam the sytem so we have now given
up. Words only
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