Could this be the last full day?
Cat-man-do
Tue 11 Dec 2007 19:11
|
Well, we've kept to our word. Last night we
considered leaving the Hot Dog up all night, but the winds we're pretty strong
and there was still the odd rain shower coming in from behind us. As these can
cause rapid shifts in wind direction and speed we decided to put the Genoa
(largest Headsail) out instead. This cost us some distance over night but at
least it enabled us to get some reasonable sleep, though not all at the same
time !
As soon as there was a dawn light in the sky, the
Hot Dog came out and away we went again. The tactics obviously paid off
yesterday, with us having our best day yet, covering 180 miles. Today has
dawned bright and sunny but there is forecast a widespread band of rain
following behind us. We have strong winds and big swells which means the
Autohelm can't cope again. So we are taking it in turns of 30 minutes to steer
by hand. It has to be said we are romping along, hardly dropping below 9 knots
at all. St Lucia's now 265 miles in front of us, as I type , so not far to go
now. Will I be glad to get there? In some ways yes, but in others, I'd quite
happily just keep on going.
More later.
Hello again,
It would appear from some E mails that people are
concerned we got lost last night! Fear not, but due to having the wind directly
up our bottom (stop sniggering at the back) the sail we used last night doesn't
work very well in that direction so we had to "bear away" (I won't tell you
again, Stop it!) It was either that, or a night of sails flapping around which
is a) Not very good for the boat b) Noisy c) Slow. The day today continues as
earlier. One very brief view of another yacht earlier today but that's all.
In the past 3 days we've only seen one other boat
and that was a huge ship during the night last night. It's front and rear lights
appeared about 1cm apart, but having checked on the Radar it was actually 5
miles away! Now, if anyone out there is much better at maths than us, could you
tell us how large it actually was?
It had the biggest echo I've ever seen on the
radar, so can only assume it wasn't exactly small.
It continues very hot and sticky here, and now down
to 235 miles to go....
B xxx |