Day 11 Lazy Dawn's Ocean Passage - 1/12
Lazydawn
Thu 1 Dec 2005 19:11
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Half way! Yes, it's official, Lazy Dawn taking
Chris, Jo and Peter across the Atlantic is halfway on her journey from Gran
Canaria to St. Lucia. This also means that there is some Champagne chilling in
the fridge to enjoy with our evening meal, which Chris has promised will be Thai
Green Chicken Curry. Fantastic!
Well, we certainly hope we're halfway by now.
With 1580 miles completed by 1200UTC today, we have about 1450 miles to go on
the rhumb line (shortest route) to St. Lucia, which we're almost managing to
sail with our course of 245 at 7kts. This means the passage will exceed
3,000 miles which is more than the 2700-2800 we were expecting to sail. So the
rum punches will just have to wait another day. With the trade winds developed,
the second half should be completed quicker than the first, so the rum punches
won't have to wait too long.
After the adventures of yesterday, we all needed
plenty of sleep, though with the yawing of the boat and the sweltering humidity,
we all could have done with more than we managed. It's quite odd having 12 hours
of darkness over night with the temperatures suggesting it is
summer which we all associate with long sunny evenings. We're still running
on GMT, so darkness is currently 2030-0830, but we are considering moving the
clocks back to have an earlier sunrise and a longer morning.
We found that there was a little more damage from
yesterdays trawling of the parasailor. A panel in the wing had ripped from front
to back, so we dropped the big baby, hoisted the code 2 spinnaker and set about
repairing the wing in the small confines of the cockpit. Just consider cloth the
size of a tennis court being repaired in an area 2m by 1.5m! It took all of 5m
of spinnaker repair tape and removal of some cloth with scissors (Chris managed
to hold back his tears!) and we hope the repair will hold.
Rain! Yes, we had a very small and short shower
today - though not long enough to shower ourselves. It was rather pleasant as
the temperature dropped about 5C, we just wish it had lasted longer. We know
we'll likely get some major squalls soon as we approach St. Lucia, so it did
provide an excellent opportunity to spot and track rain on the Radar. A job it
does do very well, so we will now be able to track squalls as they approach and
reduce sails before we get blown flat. Always a good idea!
Jo had a little problem while brushing her teeth
today. Somehow she managed to get the toothpaste all over the floor, but it
wasn't her fault, it was Antony the autohelms! (Sorry, in joke).
Updates
All the china cups and mugs remain
intact.
Chris changed his shorts for the first time since
day 1 and is now sporting his Caribbean numbers.
We have 7 episodes of 24 left, so hope to finish it
before St Lucia.
A couple more oranges bit the dust as did the
remaining kiwis and tomatoes. But the bananas are outlasting
everything.
Jo has just spotted a rainbow.
Chris has just cut his finger on the metal sleeve
on top of the champagne bottle while opening it. It was his fault.
Dinner approaches and we are bobbing a little and
the gas bottle needs changing, so more tomorrow...
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