28:23N 53:52W Plodding north east at around 6 knots. Nice weather again
and the sea is slowly beginning to turn in our favour.
Diesel day yesterday - transferring fuel into the tanks. Nick's day as cook
went superbly with a Mexican flavour - burritos for dinner.
Good news this morning - the nasty plantains that Joe bought in St Martin
were in fact very green bananas. Joe seemed quite stunned, as though some
strange biological miracle has taken place. I think he was planning a
special "eat like a farmyard animal" menu for later in the trip - but now
he'll have to make do with just his beets, yams, squash and turnips that
everyone else has avoided so far. There again, there's always a chance that
those vegetables will also change into something much nicer, just like the
plantains became bananas.
We'll turn the clocks forward today as we move eastwards - and for Dylan
fans everywhere (especially in Queens NYC, ahem) I've been practising "The
times they are a'changin" on fiddle including the mouthorgany bits in
between the verses.
Moderate problem earlier - the Raymarine E80 lost its position. We did a
reset as per the manual which sorted the position issue - but now we can't
see AIS targets and the "list AIS targets option" which used to be fine has
greyed out.. Under "setup" and then "system integration" I chose "NMEA
port" and set it to AIS4800 but no good. Changed it to AIS 38500 and still
zilch. Any ideas? I'm especially asking James here, he seems to know wot
is going on.
A few more texts recently - Keith (earlier Mojomo transat
Crew/Librarian/Director of Food) is launching his new boat today. Nick's
parents send nice texts. No, there's no landfall before the Azores
now -hundreds of miles away.
Lee's in bed snoozing *again* this morning, so unfortunately I can't ask him
his childrens' names - except that I do remember him saying that one of them
is a nine year old boy called Matt. What a very fabulous name. Hiya Matt!
No news from Barry - I think he only rings me up when he's going slowly and
worried I might catch up - no call yesterday perhaps means he's disappeared
over the horizon, darnit. He says he plans to arrive Horta on Wednesday or
Thursday. If anyone has his satphone number perhaps they could let me have
it?
The pilot seat has slightly fallen apart again - Joe reckons it's a set-up
to give him something to do. I also asked him there's anything else I
should write about from yesterday - but he says he can't remember anything
at all from yesterday. Not a thing. Like a lot of people from the USA,
he's just so, yerknow, like weird.
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