hello to everyone
our position today at 1800 tuesday is
24 07 53 N 018 25 48 W
and all is well. There is plenty of wind and all are feeling a bit better
but only skip knows why hes really here--- I think Jason Golly and myself
are questioning our motives and getting ready for a difficult mental battle
as well as a bit of physical hardship
its not so much the actual physical work thats difficult but the stress of
not sleeping and having to be awake for a watch system at a certain time and
then not being able to sleep more than 6 hours until its your turn again
saying nothing about the constant movement of the boat and the continual
noise. I bet you wish you were here!
I didnt write so much as I was so tired yesterday- but I slept a bit
better and so today I can update you on events
the team is getting its roles sortd out. Everyone is mucking in with most
jobs and everyone is enthusiastic. As I write this I can see Golly in the
kitchen preparing his first meal for all of us.. hes tried everything to get
out of it but the rules are the rules so hes cutting scraping and preparing
at the moment and when its at the table we have to try to guess what hes
prepared
yesterday was quite eventful. the night was stressful as we were all very
tired and so skip wa awake most of the night with me. come daybreak we had
to change the sail plan in a big sea which meant going to the fore (front)
of the boat and working with the bost moving all over in 2m waves. We were
to move the position of the spinnaker pole which is vvv heavy from one side
of the boat to the other and just as we began the attachment at the boom
broke landing the pole between us scrambling to save ourselves and the pole.
im not so sprightly and so had to scrabble arounbd on the deck moving the
pole around because to stand up would have certainly led to a man overboard
for me.. Luckily Jason came to help and is turning ought to be a natural at
sea with good balance etc-- he makes us sick
after a nice cup of tea we were feeling less unsettled so decided to try to
send some emails.. this then decided to pack in and took me a good hour to
repair-- things were not going well
My latest hobby on board the boat is fishing. Ive now read every book there
is on the topic and have made significant investments in rods reels lines
lures clothing gloves and every other piece of modern equipment needed to
catch fish. we are trying to catch dorado or tuna for eating so Jason and I
decided to get everything out and use the best artificial lures money can
buy to catch our dinner. it took us another hour to assemble everything and
just an hour and a half befor sunset we were ready and put out the lines.
If i was a fish id have taken the little green octopus bait i had chosen for
my rod which i could see skipping along the front surface of the waves about
80m behind the boat. after an excited hour ----nothing. Beginning to think
the night may have beaten us out pops skip with a tatty old bit of cotton on
a childs reel using a rusty hook and a bit of sausage as bait
Mind if I put out my line he asked
of course not i said but dont get tangled up with my line because its a
special bit of kit- a super chugger with a aluminium bubble head
no problem he said im only going to drop mine a few feet behind the boat-- i
learnt this when i sailed the pacific-- blah blah balh i thought another of
his fantasies
20 minutes later its about packing up time when skips reel started
screaming. he was below so i started to pull it in-- its a hand line and
normally wihout a fish its heavy but this really was super heavy.. skip
came running back up and took over. after a great fight he landed a dorado
over 4ft long and well over 10kg in weight-- a monster
you can see the photo for yourselves.
we ate like kings last night and again today
you see you can buy all the kit but nothing beats experience
tonight a big hello to gavin and thanks for repairing our sat comms and all
the guys at oyster and foxs who helped us in Palma-- we appreciaste it
until tomorrow
sleep tight
MG
