Position           17:14.95N 027:29.23W

Date                2359 UTC Sunday 28 November 2010

In the early hours of the morning, great excitement, on the AIS we saw two yachts close by.  We had come hard onto the wind, the wind dropped and veered, we went onto starboard tack and then decided that in failing wind a few hours of motoring was in order.  We actually had to take avoiding action and steer around Triffon.  They were shining torches on their sails, I thought to attract our attention but in a VHF conversation they were actually using the light to let out a reef.  Then there was our friends Andrew and Celia on Alice.  They came within 2 miles and must have been under engine as they were sailing directly into the wind; unfortunately we could not raise them on the radio.

Motoring on whilst the skipper was asleep the wind returned and on the watch change it was back to sailing hard on the wind this time in a WSW direction. The rest of the day was spent at a healing angle of 15 degrees and jolly hard work it is getting about; good for the abs though.

And now the point of the title; mixed metaphor or cryptic crossword clue.  Prior to starting to sail again Elizabeth decided to make a four egg fruit cake.  By the time that it was cooked however the Remoska was at 15 degrees and thus we have a rather unusual wedge shaped cake – thin slices for the Mate and thick slices for the Skipper – this idea could catch on.

Catering report – Very simple windward food; Buntings Cornish Pasties and beans.

In the night we were subjected to our first flying fish bombardment.  A heavy thump on the deck brings anxiety; what has fallen off?  Torch reveals unhappy flying fish in scuppers – returned to its own native environment.  Later they got more inventive and scored direct hits on the bimini – we will have to find that one in daylight if it did not continue onwards over the top and back into the sea.