Calypso's Web Diary
Joe Drury
Sat 25 Jun 2011 10:02
Good morning all,
 
Poor Alex is absolutely fast asleep after the poor thing had the double watch last night, the wind slackened off overnight but we still managed 50 miles before 9 o'clock. Sad news that we are bringing up the rear but with our reefing and spinnaker problems we can't push her any harder. Slow and steady doesn't necessarily mean "wins the race" but at least we can be assured a place if we keep up the steady progress, not to mention arriving safely into Falmouth with crew and boat intact.
 
We have 744 miles to run, by my count, around 6 days left. The weather is set to change this afternoon, so I hope we can continue our path to the NE.
 
Breakfast for me was lovely, I had tea and a cheese and ham toastie, and took it in the cockpit in the sunshine! Sorry about the foul weather you guys are having (ha ha) but at least you don't have the worry that the weather may capsize your house in the night! We are tracking a low that is sweeping in from the west, hopefully this will aid us rather than hinder us, but it is a bit too early to see what shape it will take or how big it will be.
 
We had 2 encounters yesterday from huge tankers, the first was when I was on deck wrestling with the sails, a big cargo container ship came within 2 miles, then at 2300 the dradis alarm went off and the AIS went mad, we were watching a film at the time (another Doris Day...) and we jumped out of our skin to see a 300m oil tanker materialise out of the gloomy night and slip down our starboard side, a mile and a half off our beam. I was pleased that all our alarms work to protect us, although it is still a rather unpleasant experience when they creep up on you like that. They come on quick, we'd only just had a lookout!
 
Today's jobs are to tidy the galley and saloon areas, and affect minor repairs to the rigging. It is too rough for me to climb the mast, so that can wait (good). It needs doing though, if we hit bad weather without the ability to shorten sail it could develop into a very boring situation indeed.
 
Okay, enough babble from me, Alex will check in with you all this afternoon when she gets up, bless her!
 
Joe