Day 13 - Passage to St Helena;
Misterx
Wed 19 Mar 2025 00:34
18/03/25
8:30 pm
Day 13
Atlantic Ocean
DTD : 171 NM
Another beautiful day in the sunshine, with enough wind to keep up moving at
a very sedate 5/5.5 knots. We are just plodding across this ocean, and it
certainly feels very relaxed and peaceful, just the kind of crossing we
like. Mr X is behaving himself, he even keeps right on course with very
little tweaks now and then. And the genoa has been full out for days ( the
small tear at the top does not seem to be getting bigger, thankfully).
Mr X is definitely running himself at the moment, feels like he has it all
under control and does not need us, actually thinking about it, he goes
better without our interference, he'll be taking us there with the least
fuss possible. That gives us plenty of opportunities for doing other things
than worrying about the running of the boat, like reading.
We have a full library on board, books we've picked up along the way in
various, yacht clubs or launderettes. Far too many according to Ian
bemoaning the weight of it all, this is the reason we are so slow, we are
just too heavy. He may have a point, we've not read as much as we have in
the past. Back home, in our previous life, i would have had 3 books running
at anyone time... one by my bed, one in my handbag (with 2 hours commute on
the tube every day, this one did not last long) and a third book in my
drawer at work, just in case. In am guessing that up till now, we have been
distracted by having access to internet on the boat everywhere we have been,
in the last few years. And it has been mostly very cheap and working
extremely well. I remember 8 years ago when we started this journey,
internet access was a problem, we only wanted data, and it was not so wildly
available, nor working properly. And very expensive too... The contrast
between Europe and Asia on this is stark, you can top up your sim with only
data at every corner of the street in Indonesia for example, it is cheap,
easy and fast, and it worked even in a remote bay on any given island. It
was a bit of a palaver in the Med and in the Caribbean back then, not sure
if this has improved. Off course now, all the cruisers are swearing by
Starlink, that gives you access to the internet anywhere even at sea,
although some people are now complaining about cost and lack of service in
some part of the world.
But now that we are back without the distraction of the internet, we have
been enjoying our reading. As you can imagine we both have wildly different
taste in reading materials. Ian will favour anything action packed, hero
type thing, while i would go for a bit more cerebral stuff. We both enjoy
memoirs and real people's stories. It has been interesting to see the array
of books for exchange all around. English, French and German are definitely
the most language found. Not many Spanish or Italian for example. Some of
the books we found were also quite old. As for topics, cooking, boat
maintenance, novels and other classics, and a few hobbies can be found. I
like the fact that most have a boat stamp and a date... some of these books
have been going round for a while, and gone quite far too.
Mr X is in charge and doing extremely well without my interference... better
get back to my reading.
M