Antigua to Portugal, Day 1
Cat-man-do
Thu 8 May 2008 14:14
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Good morning dear readers (for it still is morning
here, about 9.50 local time, although it seems like mid-day as I've been up
since 4am, and fishing since daybreak).
It is an honour to be asked, as first mate upon
this fine vessel for the return leg to Europe, to contribute to the blog
writing, especially as I know that Charlotte (aka Spud aka Brian), my esteemed
skipper, has somewhat of a reputation for his own fine musings published here -
see yesterday's entry for an excellent example.
I really can't add a lot to what he's already
written about race week. It was fun, fast, furious, and frustrating, but
we had a laugh and know a lot more about the argy-bargy of racing than we did a
couple of weeks ago, thanks in great part to our master tactician,
El Donkey. There is talk of chartering a boat for next year, at which point
we can deicde how seriously we want to compete, and hope that they put us in the
right class, which they didn't do with Gertha this year. Oh well, we beat
'dem Girls on the last day, which made us all feel a bit happier, and we
consistently beat a fellow Hanse, Cashtoki, which is 6 feet longer than
Gertha.
So with shopping done and a couple of nights of
being too hot and bitten to death by vile creatures in the marina, and with fond
farewells made to our fellow race crew, one of whom flew out on Tuesday, the
other two due to leave yesterday afternon, Cat-Man-Do slipped her berth at 6.30
am yesterday bound for the Algarve. Once outside Falmouth Bay we had a
horrible hour or two motoring straight into a choppy sea, but once we cleared
Antigua and the local acceleration zone, the wind turned fair and we hoisted the
Genoa and mooched along beautifully. So beautifully in fact that we
managed 163 miles in the first 24 hours!
Today the wind had moderated slightly so we now
have mainsail and genoa flying and we're managing an even better turn of speed,
8 knots on the gps next to me right now. We are being helped by a current
which should stay with us for most of the trip, adding around 1 knot to our
water speed.
We plan to stop at the Azores providing wer're not
running too far behind schedule, and should be there at best in 15 days, at
worst in something over 20 days, so we pray for the weather to stay
favourable.
I stocked up on fishing gear, so will be doing my
best to serve the skipper some fresh fish in the days to come. More of
that at a later date I'm sure.
Love to all at home, where we understand you're
enjoying a bit of a heat wave - so are we!!!
TTFN,
Le Rog and Charlotte
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