29/04/09 - 13.42.73N 63.13.80W
Flying Cloud
Julian Nichols
Wed 29 Apr 2009 23:09
I was greeted this morning to a 6am display of dolphins off the Port bow, which were considerable nicer than the Flying Fish i had to remove from the desk during the night.
We have had a 4 on 4 off watch system - apart from my usual over- excited insomnia.
I have of course a lesson for the day - blocks change the angle of pull, they don't do any work and reduce the force. Thus when i popped the kite up this morning my fingers received a couple of minor burns as a lesson!
As its now 5pm local time its officially Happy Hour.
Julian
We're well and truly off! After a very hectic couple of days, we finally managed to cast off our lines around 3pm yesterday... albeit to head out to anchor so we could do a full test run of the new genset and watermaker. We then waited until around 6pm for the customs boat to show up and check that we actually installed the units; in typical Caribbean style, they never showed! The wait wasn't a bad thing though, as we were all energised and ready to leave, we buzzed around like busy bees and had the Cloud in tip-top form, and within minutes of raising anchor we unfurled the Cuban fibre Genneker (and the solent), shut off the engines and were off sailing. We had a wonderful night cruising along (109 NM 12hr run), having wisely decided that considering our state due to my birthday celebration the kite could wait for daylight.
Today's been a day of odd jobs, most importantly, I've finished fitting the shelf over the new watermaker, and actually have mattresses back on my bed and my room in order for the first time in a week!
Matt
After a morning of learning yoga, and some repairs in the engine room and a afternoon snooz i relax at happy hour drinking rum on Julians order.
my first day has been a nice trade wind sail . it took me half an hour to get used to the movement of the boat when i came up for my watch last night, i felt a bit moby dick the boat seamed to be going round to the left no doubt it was my inner ear playing up. i hope things have returned to normal as i have been fine today.
