Telegraph Road, 9th Dec 2006
Fleck
Sat 9 Dec 2006 13:22
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Why Teleraph Road? Well we havn't had any
Dire Straits yet, and we are both fans, moreover if you can download the track,
you will find that it, and the lyrics, are pretty lon,g just like our trip.
Geoff has become quite excited now that we are
halfway, and has started to guess our time of arrival based on progress so far.
Evening on the 18th Dec is the best fit, but this is entirely dependant on
continued fair and fairly strong winds. We need an average of 5.5 Knots speed
for this. Things may well not pan out exactly since the ARC forecast warns
of a trough moving our way in the next two or three days.
Yesterday we offered to help a non ARC boat in
distress about 100 miles south west of us: we could have got there in 24 hrs.
Glad to say that another vessel got there much sooner, and took on board two
poeple from a liferaft, dont know what had happened, but the yacht was left to
sink. One of 'our' pontoons (i.e. we were neighbours before the start) boats has
lost its rudder, they are behind us, our offer of help for them was also not
taken up, so someone must be closer, or they have made emergency repairs: we all
had to have an emergency plan to deal with the eventuality.
Our halfway celebrations last night were enhanced
by a surprise package of food the Vicky (Richards no 1 daughter) left hidden on
the boat when she visited us in Las Palmas. Friday night was quite an authentic
curry night complete with nan bread. Thanks Vicky, you are a star!!
Geoff adds ; I stil haven't developed perfect
sea legs depsite two weeks at sea. I still need the odd pill to kepp
functioning, this leaves R to do most of the work 'downstairs' specifically the
cooking. The boat continues to roll from side to side with despairing
regularity and even simple tasks like drinking a G&T (last night to
celebrate our distance) are quite difficult. We managed somehow
though! After that, the moon rose again and illuminated everything for the
rest of the night. I howled at it, hoping Tomsk would
understand!!
No dramatic sailing news from our ship: Fleck
continues to look after herself, and the crew, very well; we try to check
that nothing is wearing out and hope our good fortune continues. The lighter
winds that we have experienced since yesterday evening have given only slight
relief from the rockand roll, they have slightly dented our daily run details as
follows:
Noon position; 16.40N, 40.04W
24 hr run: 146 n miles
Estimated position in 24 hours: say another 145
miles west? The weather Girls guess better han us!!
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