Greetings from somewhere in the Atlantic ocean

Gertha4
Simon Ridley
Wed 28 Nov 2007 19:48
24:55.00N 22:38.00W

Good evening readers,

Here we are on Wednesday evening, Simon is cooking beef stew for supper, and we are tootling along at around 7 knots in quite nice conditions. The sea has been more moderate today and we've had a reasonable amount of sunshine. I hate to tell you all back home, but it has been tee shirts and shorts on deck today. Someone said it's a bit cold back in the UK!

Those of you taking a keen interest in our performance will have noticed that after day 1 we appeared to be going the wrong way. Fear not, a mere slip of the skipper's finger as he updated our position was to blame. We were, and are, as far as we know, on a reasonable course for our destination.

I know you've read of my disasters on the fishing front these last days, nearly running out of lures and not a tackle shop in sight! Well today I caught a big one, sadly it managed to let go of the hook about 50 yards out, after I'd fought it hard for 10 minutes. Not to worry. I caught a 3 pound spanish mackerel about 10 minutes ago which will do nicely for lunch tomorrow.

So we're apparently about half way down the fleet, we've had a play with the spinnaker today with good success, and we need a recipe for Tarte Tatin, should any of you be kind enough to email it to us!

Looking forward to a shower on friday, if we have enough water left! Bread has run out - skipper to try tomorrow to make some from a kit - and we are eating loads of fruit before it goes rotten.
Highlights of the week so far were the sunrise on Tuesday morning, and Steph's chicken curry.

Love to all at home

Team Gertha

ps if any of you feel like emailing us, don't be shy ok? A