A lesson, a goodbye and a apinful encounter with a jacket!
Red Arrow
Rich Hume & Tom Barnes
Tue 16 Feb 2010 13:31
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Hello everybody,
To begin, we got a text this
morning from both Rachel and Lin (past owners of this boat) to say that 2 years
ago today they arrived in ANTIGUA! Were getting there but we did start a month
behind. But it reminds you that it can be done, and before we know it, it will
be our time.
A lesson:
We have been getting text
messages and email through about our route and distances etc and yes, like you,
i was confused to begin with. But i thought i would give you a quick leeson on
how it works. Although the simple answer is that we put the weypoint in the GPS
and follow the dot, I for one am also plotting our way on the map
incase our systems suddenly go down. If you get yourself an ocean map this
will all make sense, infact, any map to the world will probably do it.
Looking at a map, the ocean
is split in to degrees of lat and long. Each degree is split into 60 minutes
with each minute being the same as a 1nmile. 1 nmile is slightly different to a
normal mile but its there or thereabouts for the purpose of this. The startline
was N28.05.193 W17.06.612. The finish line is N16.58.9 W61.44.8 and we
are currently at N18.00.00 W43.29.331. We should drift the "N" lat without
too much trouble and so we have 18 degrees west to go. From this youcan
then work out your distance to run etc.
I believe on the woodvale
website it talks about DMG (Daily milage to the good), This number is how many
miles we are doing that is taking us to antigua. We should now be gaining the
whole time, that is our distance covered be very simlar to DMG. At the beginning
it was well off as we were tracking south and south only and yet the DMG wanted
us to go direct. At the current speed, we are covering 1 degree a
day, but we are going well. One day of bad weather and this can all change! Does
that make sense? The optimists amongst you will work out we have around
18 days more at sea. I hope that right!!!!
A Goodbye:
Now, im not sure if this
is official or not as i may have had a sighting at about 3am thismorning,
but terry is no longer with us, i think. I havent seen him for around 2 days now
and so im inclinded to say he has gone. Maybe he saw more fun in willy and
wilma but he was with us for 10 days and it was great having him around.
Somebody emailled to say they travel at 55 miles an hours, i dont blame him for
getting bored!!! Maybe he will return, i will let you know if he
does!!!
An encounter with a jacket:
Because my bum is quite sore at
the moment, at nights everything gets exagerated as because its dark you
have nothing else to think about. So, over the last few weeks, once we have
changed over, i promtly get naked from the waist down and it eases the pain
created by the seems of my pants and our wooden seat on my ass. Well, last
night it was quite choppy and so i was wearing a jacket. Our musto jackets have
velcro at all the ends (arms, waist and neck) and as a big wave crashed over the
top of us, i decided to do eveyrthing up. Now sitting rowing, your not sure
weather to put, you know what, above your legs of below. On this occassion
it was above. I didnt think anything of it at all untill 10 minutes before my
shift ended i decided to stand up inorder to put my pants on. Little did i know
that my velcro waist strap was under, you know what, and standing up ment that
using velcro, you know what, found itslef being pulled up far quicker than its
ment to be. Without going into too much detail, i believe im now a women and
that, you know what, is either still in my jacket or somewhere on the deck
floor.
Enjoy your day guys, its overcast here, but on we
go!!!
rich
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