Bubbles from the deep 40:59.76N 011:39.37W
Lady Corinne
iain and gaynor macalister
Sun 16 Aug 2009 06:53
|
A very good morning from Lady C and
her crew , we are about level with Porto and currently about 90 miles out to
sea. It has been a very uneventful night with very little to report,no sky,flat
sea,no dolphins or luminous jelly fish. What,s more worrying is that the
Portuguese have only just managed to get their sun up - it's 06.23! does make me
wonder how they managed to do all that conquering. It's so nice when
the dawn arrives, starting as a general lightening in the grey clouds and
then a very thin line of warm glowing orange which spreads along the
horizon from the East before climbing slowly into the sky. We
have been running a little too far to the West due to the direction the wind has
been coming from and I have just changed the sail plan to run Goosewinged
(setting the outer foresail and main sails out on different sides of the boat to
run more or less directly in front of the wind) and once again I am regretting
leaving my booming out pole at home - what a mistake to make - as the
foresail keeps collapsing. We had a fabulous day yesterday and covered
over a hundred miles including a stopoff. It was an aquatic stopoff rather than
a visit to one of the many beautiful and interesting Ports along this
coast. It is such a shame to be passing them all but to make even a
couple of stops would severely hamper our progress. The day started a little
cloudy but around 9.00 they began to break up and the sun came through to
chase away any whisps of white that were left. The wind was steady all day
and in pretty much the right direction.We passed the morning enjoying being in
the warm, listening to music and setting the camera up to take some auto
shots. I used 3 of the last 5 remaining eggs to cook french
toast. I had been asked by Amanda to post some more pics of Lady C which I
did but she then pointed out that there were no people in them, it's quite
strange that on such a small ship I managed to take pictures without anyone else
around, and I can only imagine that 6 days out of Falmouth and the last shower
block they were just avoiding getting too close to me. Gaynor,the nautical
culinary goddess,produced the makings of fajitas for lunch and we enjoyed it in
the sunshine in a very respectable fashion, our cockpit table locates at one end
into the ships wheel which means that it is only possible to use in when the
boat isn't underway,however with the recent addition of the grunting ex
Wimbledon champion manning the helm the wheel doesn't turn so we were able to
eat at the table whilst under way, how civilised and thank you Derek for putting
it back together before we left. It could prove tricky in a lumpy seaway
but worked beautifully yesterday. After lunch we were torn between
preparing our costumes for the fancy dress party last night or a swim.
Swimming it was then and we heaved-to (a way of parking the boat so she is still
in the water with the sails up but not going anywhere by having the wind driving
one and pushing against the other) Having seen the film we resisted the
temptation to all go in together and Gaynor & Tristan went in first with
Tristan performing a very respectable dive off the coach house roof. My entrance
was more cautious as I'd seen a trail of bubbles coming up from the deep and
seeing as it is very,very,very deep here I was wondering just what might be
down there. Suitably refreshed from our swim we got back underway and I
used the foredeck which was bathed in sunshine to have a much needed wash first
in salt water and then rinsed off with a kettle full of fresh.
Unlike Tristan I didn't bother with a shower screen and turned around to see him
taking a picture which he tells me is going on the blog,I think he's bluffing
but be warned. The late afternoon passed in a lovely relaxed way,with
Gaynor writing her first blog and culminated in a fabulous meal of lamb
hotpot,peas.carrots and smash, followed by pineapple and rice pudding, this is
from the girl with the fridge magnet that says " I only have a kitchen 'cos it
came with the house" Tristan has just appeared looking a bit creased
after his off watch. I had let him sleep on while I was writing this but he must
be getting used to the watch pattern and has woken up automatically.
We're going to get the cruising chute out and see if we can coax another knot
out of Lady C as we now have a daily record to try and beat. Don't forget
to email us please - we were very disappointed when we logged on to send
Gaynors blog and there was nothing to receive. Au revoir
xx
|