Christine's Atlantic Circuit
Peter Lansdale
Fri 18 May 2018 15:59
39:01.3N 044:00.9W
Now I do not want you to miss out on some of the
finer points of the pleasures of ocean crossing. Manuela and Lynn have produced
a "dog house" sign, which I seem to end up standing around quite a lot of
late Even the skipper has to take his turn in there (it gets crowded if I
have not redeemed myself in time!) However Skip has techniques for getting out
quickly, like baking bread, evidenced by the attached picture. I thought he had
cooked his goose this morning, with 2 sail changes from twin poled out
genoas to main and genniker before Manuela had time to drink her first coffee. I
guess she was still chilled from the dolphin visit yesterday afternoon. Somehow
she managed to take a picture of the dolphins, and also of her and Lynn
encouraging them with applause and whooping (see the pictures). It is all very
pleasant, with a great standard of catering no matter who is cooking, and what
is nice for both couples, is to have a diversity of meals. So Manuela has been
treated to stuff other than my pasta, rice, couscous rotation. "Christine"
is a very well appointed boat and we will get off with ideas for future treats
for our own boat which is having a rest in Trinidad. i have warned Skip that he
might want to frisk us for some items when we get off, though how we would
conceal a roller furling code zero spinnaker under our oillies is anyone's
guess. As for me, well my 0000-0300 watch thoughts this
morning centered on the vast difference between the boat speed through the
water, and the speed over the ground. This 3 knots at times ...in our favour!
This simply is unheard of, in our favour, and I began to wonder if the
whole of the GPS system was up the creek. Dark thoughts of having to revert back
to celestial navigation for real rather than as an interesting potential
diversion. Not only that, but i had to consider dropping something in the water
at the bow, and timing it to the stern and knowing the length of the boat, do
some sums to check our boat speed; i had even worked out the formula! As i
have often remarked, night watches do stuff to you! needless to say come the
morning light and a change of direction, all appeared to be back to
normal. |