Day 8 - Passage to the Caribbean
Misterx
Tue 8 Apr 2025 22:13
08/04/25
8:30 pm
Day 8
South Atlantic Ocean
DTD : 2,859 NM (120NM)
This is turning into The Birds Gazette!!!
We had them all night again, only 6 this time but just as noisy during the night... Only 2 remained when I evicted them at 6am as the sun rose up... need to get theses batteries filled up and that wasn't going to happen with the tarpaulin on top of them. The bedraggled one would not be moved from the Bimini, but the other kindly settled himself on the guard wire. He spent a good hour preening then took off, to get breakfast presumably. The other one stayed a until 9am then took off. The tarpaulin did an excellent job on the solar panels, but the deck and side decks got covered with poo... so still a lot of cleaning to do, but easier than the acrobatics required to clean up the solar panels on top of the Bimini.
As we thought that we had seen the last of them, at least until the evening, Old Bedraggled returned, looking worse for wear, I must admit, and settled himself on the solar panels again! Had to shift him ... with the help of a tickling stick, he was made aware that the panels were out of bound... Ian, the Great Oiseaux Whisperer, made him understand that the boom would be a perfectly suitable perch for the day! And it worked!!! Well until about 2 pm when he got bored with the view and he came down to our level, on the deck. And there it stayed all day, preening and dozing. Looking at him from close up he is in good shape despite the bad feathers day look... probably just exhausted. By 5pm he got back up the boom, obviously eyeing up his evening quarters. He stayed there until we got the tarpaulin up on the Bimini again... and then he moved back on his favourite perch for the night! And sure enough, he was joined by one of his friend by the time I started my shift at 8pm... It would seem that this is a fairly normal occurrence around these parts. Most of our fellow cruisers report the same birds' stories for a varying length of time, from a couple of days to a full week! Not to worry, as long as we can have the tarpaulin up to protect the solar panels it is not a big issue, just a longer cleaning session in the morning! But if this carry on we will need to think of some names for our feathered friends!
Correction: the bird's palmed feet are black.
As predicted, we have our wind back, another day of 5.5 to 6 knots consistently... we like this, especially as as we are hearing stories of squalls and wind holes in thee doldrums from our friends who have taken the other route, and left earlier than us... Really don't like the sound of squalls!!
Our day has been rather uneventful in comparison, a bit of reading, and a bit of gazing at the clouds. Sunshine and warm breeze is what we are experiencing at the moment, and long may it last!
We usually do our correspondence during the night shift, it makes it go faster... Must say it is lovely to receive emails and being in touch with friends and family. Even our weather guru has time for a little chitchat nowadays... guessing the season is drawing to a close and he hasn't got many boats to take care off now! And he is greatly amused with our Birds Gazette!
M