Blog 1st June
Nightsong
Tue 1 Jun 2010 11:44
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Dear Blog
Just about to arrive in Horta before midday so I
thought I would do a final blog for the moment, before we get
in.
Well yesterday as the day before and the day before
that, it rained hard all day (we watched a bit of 'Yes Minister' on the DVD)..
We really have had terrible weather - our great compensation has been the
abundant sea life. Except today, we have seen dolphins literally every day - and
whales, birds galore, jelly fish. But today as we approach the island of Faial
it has at least stopped raining.
The North Atlantic had to throw one
final sling at us last night. The GRIB forecasts from Mailasail have been
uncannily accurate - yesterday they forecast that the strong NE we had had
all day would change to SW by 1700hrs and blow me down the wind went from force
5 NE to force 5 SSW in the space of about 20 mins at about 1645hrs. The
grib said that this would increase slightly to about 22 to 25 knots
overnight. They were wrong!! By 2100 it was gusting 30 knots and we had 2
reefs in. By 0100 this morning it was blowing at up to 35 knots. We delayed
taking the 3rd reef too long but eventually did and carried this sail plus a
very rolled down jib all night, steaming along at 8.5 knots until it died early
this morning. Our 3rd Force 8!
Thanks to my crew Nick, Simon and David. You have
been excellent and this very challenging voyage would not have
been possible without you. The Nightsong gremlins have done their best but
we have collectively overcome them all and kept very cheerful
 AJB 1st June 2010
PS Simon has caught 1 bird, 1 red ensign and 1
oilskin but alas no fish!! He tried!!
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