25:54.890N
16:44.790W
Well, we've had our first night
at sea, and everyone is finding their sea legs. It was a nice clear night with
relatively calm sea and good winds, so it was a good introduction for everyone.
Up until about 0200 it was very busy so we had to be very
vigilant to avoid getting too close to yachts that seemed to appear from all
directions. After that it thinned out significantly, and now (lunchtime), we can
only see one boat on the distant horizon. In spite of this we know that there
are lots of people around from the radio schedules that we
hear.
Last night we had a magnificent
supper prepared by Lizzie and Jackie. No fish on the menu yet but we have a line
out and Martyn is playing with his new rod (what do we do with him
Clare?) - I warned him to get clipped on to the boat ready for the big
one coming but he doesn't believe me.
Currently heading a bit more
south than needed but according to David an ancient saying was 'to pick up the
trade winds head south until the butter melts'. Today we think that GPS is the
answer - much cheaper to get a bit of butter - just dont leave it in the fridge,
who knows where you might end up!. We have just changed sails and are now able
to head a little more west - much closer to the track we need. Sailing is a
bit up and down but we are making reasonably good
progress......still no fish Martyn!
We will be logging in today. The
SSB radio log is held in 4 groups, A,B,C,D. At certain times during the day
each group controller brings their group together and each boat
reports their location and the local weather.........and how many fish they have
caught Martyn!
Tonight we will try to log in
with Herb. Herb (Herb Hilgenberg) is a radio ham (call sign
VE3LML) based in Canada and he communicates with all who call in to
him and provides an up-to-date weather forecast. He does this
voluntarily and is a legend amoungst the ARC participants - we will be
listening out for you Herb at 20:00 GMT (UTC).
The log (distance travelled)
is reading 159 nauticl miles (1 NM is about 1.2 normal miles) from when we
started, speed over the ground from the GPS is 7.1 kts. All is well on GE
and best wishes to all those back at
home.
