17 JULY 09
Flamingolady
Fri 17 Jul 2009 21:50
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38 47.269 N 33 20.009 W
19:30 ut
A better day than expected with a little excitement
thrown in.
I went on watch at 05:00 local tome just before sun
up, the sun making the horizon about 15 minutes into the watch. through the
night we had been making 5.5-6 kts on target however with the sun the wind began
to drop, and later I set the light weight genoa and we made steady
progress, 4.5 kts still on target. the day was bright and sunny and very nice if
you have no time of arrival mind . At that time were still 280 miles from
Horta and we cannot motor that far so do not book the restaurant just yet.
Having spotted a ship on the horizon and confirmed
by radar that he was 10 miles away with a closest point of approach of 7.5 miles
I was back in the cockpit looking around and there on eth port side 20 meters
away was a whale, a definate whale, 12 m long just braking the surface and
blowing spouts and it rolled along. this was the big square nosed type not the
large dolphin type we saw the other evening. Its one thing I wanted to see.
We sailed on for a while then the wind dropped
and we had to motor but within two hours we had wind to sail and in an hour we
had to take down the light genny and use the no.1. since then we have glided
along at between 5 and 5.5 kts on a sea from flat to bumpy. Infect we did cross
a patch of sea with a short chop and crests but no more wind !!
I hope the wind will keep going the grib indicates
that light winds which go from south the west hopefully the strength will
be above predicted and we can keep moving at 5 kts at least. We could
motor from 150 miles away, just, but do not want to.the good news
is that eth time to waypoint calculated by the gps had gone from
2.5 to 1.7 days so we are getting there, i guess its still two days away ! maybe
2.5 till tie up !!
the water temp is 22.5 and feels cold
in the shade its 24 in eth afternoon and in the sun
its 30+
the wind is cool as its a high pressure area and as
eth sun goes down the decks get damp and its cold
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