dandelion's progress
Dandelion
Rick, Helen, Sue, John
Tue 21 Jun 2011 13:19
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Hi Karen, can you forward on again please .... also, I’ll be
sending an extra couple of names to add to the list later, if you could go back
and send to them later it would be great – many thanks Sue ...
21st June
Hello from 45:22.3N 20:21.4W (about 850 miles west of
Bordeaux).
Over the w/e we experienced a bit of a glitch with our
comms. (The Satphone is a pay-as-you-go and as we omitted to, er, well,
pay they went and pulled the plug. Bastards, they might have at least sent a
text to tell us. Luckily we could still send texts so were
able to summon shore-side assistance from Jean and Dave – thanks guys, we owe
you (again).
Since the last update we have been making stout progress
towards Blighty eating up the miles more-or-less along the rum line. After we
watched the lights of Terceira fading behind us on 17th the Wind Gods have got
busy and its been pretty brisk out here. We’re riding along in the bottom
of a low so we’ve got NW’lies F5 which have kicked up an impressive sea, whites
horses, biggish swell and all. Its also made it a lot cooler
– nights are now fully togged + thermals. There’s a high building behind
us which will put the brakes on a little but to an extent this will be a welcome
respite as the boat is in ‘full motion’ as they say.
On 18th we had a ship encounter. First we spot this
thing over on our port quarter (= to our left and behind us), showing us its
port side. There is potential here for an ‘encounter’ so R took a bearing
on the closing ship, ‘285’. Five minutes later and our ship has now grown
into a huge container-carrier showing no sign of having noticed our
presence. R takes another bearing – still 285. This means that
unless someone changes course we’re going to a) collide or b) get close
enough to count their rivets. I call them up on the VHF.
‘Vessel approaching, vessel approaching, this is British
sailing yacht, Dandelion, over’. Not a thing. Try again.
Ziltch. The ship is now very much in our part of the ocean. Hand
over to S.
‘Ship in position’, blah, blah, ‘this is Dandelion,
over’
Instantly they’re back, with, ‘good afternoon mam, are we the
ship you talking to?’ And they chat about this and that and scooby-doo,
scooby-doo, then he asks,’ do you want to cross my bows?’ We do so
want. So my lovely missus gets this huge bloody ship (by now its a
monster), carrying gawd-alone knows how many
containers, to apply full starboard rudder and carry out a healing turn round
our stern. Wonderful, that’s what I call it.
Wild life spotters might find it a tad dull up here.
That is unless you’re speciality is stormy petrels. Like last time we were
here in Stromboli, there’s about half-a-dozen of these brown and cream birds
zooming about, literally at wave-top level, using us as the only reference point
in an ocean seemingly devoid of dolphins, whales even flying fish. And
since our container-carrier day, even ships.
R won the 23 hour run tote today (149 miles) which leaves
about 680 to the Lizard.
More soon,
Love from 2 men and a
girl |