Mon 7th Nov 09
Ca Canny
Mon 7 Dec 2009 17:34
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Dear blogg readers,
A small further update about the last few days.
We are now 255 miles off St Lucia.
We are all sitting on deck reminiscing about the
trip with a gin & tonic in Paul's hand.
The fishes caught or not caught. The question why
fish would catch the lure if there are so much flying fish around. They take
off, glide on the wind, hit the top of a wave, change direction and keep on
flying further.
Last night on Paul's shift, one landed on the
desk and was sliding to the port hole of Jamie's cabin.
Still no birds to see.
On Saturday, we had a very slack day with only 120
miles over 24 hours.
On Sunday, the wind was stronger, we made 162
miles.
In the evening, just when we where going to put our
head down, we noticed 2 white lights ahead of us.
Looking on the AIS, it turned out to be a 932 foot
cargo ship from Bilbao.
It was only 10 miles away. We dug our white flares
up just in case he was getting too close and hadn't seen us. Not that he would
be able to stop or turn with that mass on such a short stretch. Luckily his
course was gently angled away from us.
Skipper made sweet & sour chicken.
Unfortunately the container of salt and sugar is the same. We ended up chucking
it in the Atlantic as is was salty as hell.
During the night, the wind had burst up to 27
knots, so we are making better headway today. For the rest, the night was
uneventfull.
I got up late today as I hadn't slept well before
my watch.
During the morning, skipper wanted to check the
halyards of the foresails.
So we lowered the small foresail. The halyard was
eroded but only the outer sheet, not the core which takes all the strain. U
shackle off, cut 2 feet from the top of the halyard, new end attached to the U
shackle, attached back to the top of the sail. And up it went.
Not that it would have snapped on our last 2
days but one expirience like this is enough.
The genoa was too far away to handle in the winds
we had. So we didn't check this one.
Paul won from Jamie with the cards this time. 95
points over.
We just noticed a yacht astern, still only the top
of the sail.
e-mail received from Stefaan, he is now following
the bloggs.
We are trying the guess the ETA again. If we make
it before 14.00 hours on Wedn, we will have done the crossing in 16 days.
A new fishing contest has started. The ever elusive
sail fish needs to be caught before we arrive.
One yacht caught a sailfish of 40 pounds.
We here that the weather in Belgium is as bad as it
is in Scotland.
Further update tomorrow
Marc
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