A burial at sea - Canaries passage day 5

Moorglade's Voyage
Ted Wilson
Fri 15 Oct 2010 11:53
Our position is 29:26.17N 53:15.92W
Fri 15th Oct 12.19
Thursday afternoon was one of mixed
fortunes. We were able to sail for much of the time which was good as it
conserved our fuel. Towards the end of the afternoon there was a period of Ted
putting in and then shaking out reefs like a fiddlers elbow. However as
evening approached we were back motoring.
A low point was when a falcon of some sort flew
around the boat and finally landed on the aft deck. It was hanging on with one
wing over the guard rail and looked exhausted (as I would be if I had flown over
100 miles). It was never going to survive and so we wondered what to do since
nobody wanted to approach the aft deck. It refused offers of meat on the
end of the boat hook and eventually flew away, circled a couple of times, tried
to land on the TV aerial (worryingly standing on the wind
instruments). Regretably the inevitable happened and it ditched in the
water and was lost.
Kay excelled herself by producing a
tortilla of exceptional quality which raised
our spirits for the long night of motoring.
Morning dawned to find us motoring against a head
wind. We still have reserves of fuel and our ETA in Las Galletas is still
Saturday afternoon.
Although motoring is tedious the weather is sunny
and warm. It was shorts and bare feet order all night and the temperature now is
high 20s.
JMH
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