Oriole and Mirabella V leave Antigua
Oriole
Sun 19 Mar 2006 14:37
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It has been a busy week catching up with
two months of backlog maintenance.
Chris has been busy with the varnish brush and her work has been much admired even by the professionals. John has been servicing all the systems and Andrew and his crew have been getting Mirabella V ready for their trip to Genoa for dry docking. She came alongside on Sunday evening having dispatched the owners home and we earned our T shirts by taking her lines. At 250 feet overall that is no mean task without the help of a bowthruster but they had the help of their tender as a tug. 
Andrew checking the rig
One day we spied Andrew at the top of their 290 foot mast checking everything, although their crossing will be mainly motoring. As the owner explained to us the mainsail costs more than a new engine, so Mirabella V is just a big day-sailer. John was very keen to go up in the bosuns chair but Andrew would not play ball, so we had to make do with a trip in the crows nest which goes halfway up on a track on the front of the mast. 145 feet was quite enough and was higher than any of the masts around. 
At the crows nest.
On Monday the last of the transatlantic rowers arrived. Roz Savage had been over 3 months at sea and had not had any hot food since before Christmas and had lost 30 pounds in weight. There was not much of her left but a great spirit with a sore bum and hands. We managed to watch the England v Ireland rugby match on Saturday afternoon with Mirabella's crew and shortly afterwards she slipped out and away for the Med with the lovely stewardess cuddling Andrew and promising to mother him!  Mirabella
V puls away from the dock.
We had our anchor up at 0815 this Sunday morning and are now about 10 miles south of Antigua en route for Guadaloupe with a light breeze on the beam and hardly a cloud in the sky and the outside temperature 27C doing 6.5 knots on a pretty smooth sea. It does not get any better than this! |