Day 15
The end of our second week at sea. Jamie has
pointed out that by calling the very first day we set sail "day 1" my
days don't tally correctly. Apparently I should have called the day after we
set sail day 1 (our first "whole day" at sea) thus today would be day
14. I have already given myself a headache over that and I can't change it now
but anyway today is Wednesday (I think) and two Wednesdays ago we set sail from
Panama City... two whole weeks already; where did that time go?!
Last night after posting our update the gentle
breeze died off leaving mirror flat water. We furled away the sails rather than
listen to them flogging about and drifted in the calm waters still making
nearly a knot of speed in the right direction by current alone. I looked over
the side of the boat and saw two small brightly coloured Mahi Mahi fish with
electric blue wing tips and bright orange tails so vivid they could have been
made of the fluorescent lights you see over bars and nightclubs. All around us
the water started to come alive with small tuna jumping. We even saw a small
squadron of flying fish; just a dozen or so, no more.
The sun set in her usual dramatic fashion and the
bright full moon was already high in the sky long before she did, meaning it
never really got dark; the light just changed colour from a warm orange glow to
a cool blue. There is nothing nicer than night sailing under a clear sky and a
full moon. In the last glow of the daylight we had watched a sizeable pod of
small porpoises playing some way off in the distance and over the next 10 or 15
minutes they approached and passed off our beam. These were much smaller
creatures than we had spotted previously; very acrobatic in their movements and
curiously they didn't seem to have much in the way of tails. Rather than the
familiar dolphin tail their bodies appeared to tail off to a small stump, very
curious.
We passed a pleasant evening playing Yahtzee
(Jamie won - standard) and enjoyed the leftovers of the Moussaka from a couple
of nights previous.
With no sails to tend we turned in to our bunks;
Jamie up on deck and myself in the saloon.
At 6am we lifted full sail again as the winds
filled in. We were hopeful for the promised westerly winds that would push us
towards the trade winds we hoped to find in a couple of latitudes.
Unfortunately what wind we got had much more southerly in it; SW, SSW. In terms
of strength it was force 3 occasionally force 4 but despite this we have rarely
made more than 3 or 4 knots of speed all day. This is a little disappointing;
we set so much in store by the forecasted weather and are so keen to get
ourselves to where the trade winds are but sadly today didn't deliver. Our 5pm
to 5pm daily run was, once again, a measley 35nm.
Despite a poor run we have had a good day on-board.
They don't vary much from day to day; mostly reading and napping! I did bake
some biscuits which is a bit of a first for me. I'd decided I wanted to bake
something as a treat for Easter and as I am really not a keen baker I thought I
would start early to get a "practice batch" out the way and give me
time to tweek my method if necessary for the special Easter batch. They came
out ok. I used a very simple recipe from a boat galley cookbook called
"the Beaufort scale cookbook" which grades the ease of recipes
against the strength of wind you are attempting to use them in! These were
force 3 biscuits - so pretty easy to make! Anyway they baked much more quickly
than expected so I will adjust the temperature accordingly on my next batch;
otherwise I was pretty pleased with them!
The rest of the crew seem happy enough; Jamie is a
little disappointed with the conditions today and has been getting frustrated
and adjusting sails for much of the day but he's ok. Meep is currently sitting
with him in the cockpit keeping him company while I am below writing.
We are all still talking to each other after two
weeks so that's something anyway!
Nothing much else to report tonight.
