Land Ahoy
Thursday 16th December 2010 2am Well this is my final night watch after 26 days at sea.
Despite the end supposedly having the most wind it has now died to 4-8 knots so
we are motor sailing. We had the spinnaker up for a while yesterday but it is
too much hassle for little gain at night and we all now just want to get
there. Hopefully we will be able to sail over the finish line but if not we
have agreed with Catou, who we are still very close to, we will have a motor
race over the line. The sea is now relatively calm. It is really weird not
rolling about the whole time. Dinner last night passed without a single swear
word as nothing suddenly went flying as a wave hit and we even had the table up
in the cockpit! Also having been a dry boat the whole way we shared 3 beers
between 4 last night – wild!! They have been in the fridge since the
pontoon party but despite fridge space being at a premium we could never be
bothered to take them out. We are slightly worried that we will have lost our
alcohol tolerance and after 3 rum punches will be out of it, but let’s
hope the excitement of arriving will overcome this. We have also been keeping
the bottle of homemade cider given to us by the hotel in Picos de Europa in the
fridge the whole way. No one ever wants to drink it but I feel we have to try
it before we can chuck it. It’s funny after being desperate to arrive for ages I
will now also be slightly sad that it is all over. My mood must have changed
as my iphone play list has changed from mellow to rock anthem. Despite the
engine it is lovely on deck now with an almost full moon. We have become very
familiar with the lunar cycle, having nearly done a whole one, and now know
the stars very well. Roger, Toby and Mary have all read several books but Alan
hasn’t even started one as he is always too busy with boat jobs or on the
computer. We have also got really into i-phone scrabble and are so far almost
equal in numbers of games won. Saturday 19th December Spoke too soon, I was happily listening to music on deck
when I suddenly noticed the motion of the boat had changed and Orion had moved
and we were heading back to the UK. The autopilot had gone so I had to hand
steer and never managed to finish this blog. We did manage to get it working
again from the chart table unit by disconnecting the unit in the cockpit.
Since arriving we have taken it apart and realise it is buggered. Water has
somehow seeped in to the control panel and corroded the circuit board. It is
fairly key when sailing double handed so we are looking into getting one
shipped out for a mere £900! |