Restless on Atlantic Crossing - First report

Restless of Auckland
Roland and Consie Lennox-King
Sat 12 May 2007 01:49
We are currently at 33'38.87"N and 62'24.614"W,
travelling at 5 knots at a bearing of 056
degrees. Motor is running because there is only about 5-8 knots of wind. The
plan is to head at 065 degrees for a few more days and then we should be met
with westerly winds that will take us all the way down to the Azores however due
the status of the wind conditions that plan might change slightly.
All is well on board and apart from the lack
of wind we've had no problems. We cleared customs at about 2 o'clock
yesterday and sailed away from Bermuda after getting our clearance from the
harbour master at 1815GMT. Everyone is getting along just fine, pulling
their weight and helping out where help is needed. We are running 2 hour shifts
each , with the person in the
shift ahead of you 'on call' should you have any trouble.
So far we have seen a few birds, flying fish,
Portuguese men of war (jellyfish), a log and a ship in the
distance. James caught a baby blue
marlin this morning but only managed to get it to the stern of the boat as by
the time he had woken Pat up and he had the gaff out
it was already at the stern and got free. It was only about 2 feet long and
didn't put up a fight at all so it must have
been quite young and weak. Definitely too small to keep anyway. It was a
beautiful deep blue colour with grayish stripes and had a small 6 inch nose and
its fins all pricked up when it got to the boat. Quite exciting but we're hoping
for something a little bigger!
Tomorrow we have the boat mandatory swim day! The
water temp is about 24.5 degrees and rising as we get deeper so we're itching to jump in and cool
down. Today has been a beautiful day so we've been soaking up some sun and
lounging around reading and poking fun at each and the barometer is rising so
I'm guessing tomorrow will be just as nice. (However I'm no whether
man!)
From
the crew of Restless somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic!