Sunday 10th., 16.37N, 47.10 W. 811 miles to go.
Moonshine
Sun 10 Dec 2006 12:56
shifts, and I just missed midnight.
Saturday was a good day, but then so have they all been.
It was another of those Martini days, with tropical sun, blue blue sea,
gentle easterly winds, (directly behind us), fish, dolphins, diving
seabirds, and everything you would imagine it to be. The only thing that was
missing was the presenter of Desert Island Disks.
We haven't moved far South to get these tropical conditions, it's
going West at these lattitudes that makes the difference.
That does make it hot though, and with no trees to sit under!
Finaly yesterday, after days of thinking about it, we worked out a way of
putting the broken pieces of the twistle pole together, and rigging it as a
whisker pole to hold out the 2nd foresail. We had discussed it several times
but each time dismissed it as not being strong enough. With the lighter
winds, we decided to try it, and it worked, and is holding. It doesn't make
much difference, but a quarter knot over the remaining 800 odd miles would
gain us 5 hours.The fleet is now really stretched out.The boats ahead of us
are now, bar
two, too far ahead to catch, the boats behind are becoming too far behind to
catch us.
The two exceptions are "Barkus" and "Swift" They are both close to us
(actually many miles away, but have roughly the same distance to run).
Niether are in our class, but we have a bet with Swift over who can take
whose lines, and Barkus is a boat we have chatted to on the radio.
We have much lighter weather forecast, and some tactics will be employed.
The rules allow use of the engine - but a penalty hour is added for each
hours use. There will come a point for all boats at which the penalty is
worth taking, especially if it means not having to stand off and wait till
dawn to cross the line at St. Lucia. We last used our engine ten days ago
when we broke the rig. Its wonderfull to sail that long with no engine noise.
We caught three fish yesterday. The first was a large and very angry
swordfish that declined to come aboard and instead broke the hook. The other
two were dorado, both caught at the same time. One was thrown back
They were caught too late to affect our lunch or dinner plans. That is for today.
Lunch yesterday, - this is not a spoof - was a little camembert, and a little caviar
on Jacobs crackers, and offered with chilled white wine - we can be genteel
- but served with ice cold beer. Dinner was the reseve, chilli served with pasta
with some Rioja. We are eating well.
We had a problem with the main tank water overnight. Well not a problem,
we pumped it dry! We expected this to happen a few days later.
We have only bottled water left. This is merely inconvenient,
as we have more than enough bottled. I think the last count gave us
about 4 litres a day each for the rest of the trip.
Thanks again to all who are following this, and those who have sent us emails.
Pam Spriggs - where is yours? Every morning at home you wake me up, and
then when I'm gone, not a peep.
All the best
Rod, Dave, Alun, and the mouse.
SY Moonshine
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