DAY 11 – Thursday 14 December 2006

Thursday was beautiful.  The sky was blue with fluffy story book clouds.  Many of them were the same shape as though they had been cut out with pastry cutters, same shape with different sizes.  Some people say that you clouds look like things, animals and the like, I wouldn t say that in case you thought I was losing it, but I can see their point.  The sea was calm, not totally smooth, but the waves were gentle and there was not a white crest to be seen.  The boat was leaving a trail of bubbles.  The sun was out and it was lovely and warm.  There was only 6 knots of wind, but I kept sailing and was managing 3 knots of speed.  If this was what it was going to be like from now on I was in no hurry.  I had passed the half way point, just over 1000 miles from CV and just about 1000 miles to Barbados.

4pm I put the engine on for an hour to run the watermaker for 10 minutes and top up the batteries.  6pm I decided I should get a rattle on and put the engine back on, but only for an hour.  At 7pm the wind was 6-10 knots, it went up every time I got ready to put the engine back on.  21:20 I put the main away as the wind was moving round and 22:20 the wind was back down to 7 knots and I put the engine back on.  At midnight I was debating whether to turn the engine off as it seemed to be 10-12 knots, but best to give it a bit longer.  3:20 the wind was still 10-12 and so I turned the engine off.  6:30 I tweaked the sails, 7:45 I changed tack, the wind was still 10 knots, luckily I had my sugar puffs at this time.  8:30 it was rough and I was going to check, but left if a bit longer and by 9:00 it was a 20 knot squall. 

The pleasant thoughts of yesterday were completely forgotten.  It was rough and uncomfortable and impossible to do much.  I know there is no point getting so frustrated, but yesterday was so good I was really annoyed.  We go from too much wind to not enough wind, can we not just have a constant 10-15 knots NE.

The boats at the back of the pack, like me, were motoring yesterday.  We are waiting to cross the front to pick up the wind.  Have I crossed it or is this just a long squall.  3 hours and it is still throwing a bit of a wobbly.  Even if the sun comes out now it will take hours for this sea to calm down again.

But yesterday was lovely.