Postion: 40’03.86N, 046’27.19W

 

‘’At Sea, nature doesn’t care who you are, just if you are prepared. Everything seems clean and honest – the way I like it.’’ Ian & Bob’s quote of the day

 

The blog has been off air over the last 48 hours as the endurance of Serica and her crew was tested by an ever increasing Easterly over the past 4 days. It built slowly, until 48 hours ago, when it turned into a nasty force 8 on the nose. We had a choice of running with it (and loose all the miles we just accumulated) or stick with it. We chose to grizz  it out (turned the setting to high on the Bucking Bronco), chose the Northerly tack (Starboard), and battened down the hatches and claw our way slowly towards the Azores. We probably covered 400 miles over the 4 days, only 150 towards Horta, but the wind has slowly eased today, veered SE and allowed us a brief respite.

 

Everything is either wet or soaked through on the boat, we’ve spent most of the day filling holes to stop the water getting in and mopping up. Luckily and most importantly, our sleeping bags have remained dry, unlike the rest of our kit. Some comedy moment to keep us cheered up, on watch change, I was crawling into my bunk (starboard, and high side), when Serica crashed through a wave, sending me hurtling out of my bunk, landing square in Bob bunk, with him still trying to get out. With one lee cloth completely destroyed, we’re down to hot bunking on watch changes.

 

To keep moral high, we’ve ensured that we have at least one hot meal a day. Again, either very humorous, or frustrating, you need three hands to cook on Serica, and then some to hold on.  We exhausted the last of our fresh food today, the last of the bread was used to make egg banjo's. A lot of the dry food has been spoiled by salt water (poor admin on our part!), leaving tins for the remaining days. In the words of Sir Robin Know-Johnston, ‘I don’t do eta’s, only destinations’. With that thought in mind, Horta still is our destination, possibly in 8-10 days time.