Wednesday, 06 February 2013

14 06N 048 24W

Our sacrifice of three spilled tins of beer to Aeolus, the Greek god of wind, at the halfway party has been answered with a perfect strong, steady blow from the East, pushing us along at well over six knots. Our likely arrival date has been pushed up to Sunday, which should be good news, but seeing that Ian has all of the predicted arrival times earlier than Monday locked up, the mood is slightly melancholy. Ian’s promise to use his winnings on the bar tab at the first rum shack they find has lifted spirits back up and with only 640 miles the anticipation of landfall grows by the hour.

To accompany the spilled beer, Barrie cooked a fabulous leg of lamb with carrots, peas and roast potatoes. We’ve somehow managed to run low on milk and butter, but our filet mignon steak stock is doing just fine.

A downside to the stronger wind is a building swell and we had our first rogue wave through a hatch yesterday, giving Tony an impromptu shower in the galley. That along with the occasional night squall bringing rain makes us think that maybe we should have made a sacrifice to Poseidon while we were at it.

We gave it our best shot to find the only navigational mark within a 500 mile radius, the Mid Atlantic buoy, but as we passed it at night we weren’t able to see the expected flashing yellow light even though we passed within 7 miles of it. On the upside, we didn’t hit it, so it came off a wash.