Day 3 / 18:00
Rhapsode
Tue 16 Sep 2008 17:09
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33:29:00N 09:44:00W
16th September 2008.
We had a fantastic sail last night - roaring
along at terrifying speeds of 6 to 7 knots. It was great that is,
for the watch on deck, but for the watch below it was difficult not to be thrown
out of his bunk. We were on a beam reach and beam on to the Atlantic swell.
Michael and I think we are hallucinating on our
night watches - we both had companions on last night. Michael's wore a red
coat with a blue hood and stood on the aft deck - and which turned out to
be a combination of the wind vane and the outboard engine cover.
Mine was in shadow but was standing in the cockpit - and he was the
result of the chart plotter and the open door to the main cabin. I'm calling my
companion George. Nope, no reason in particular, he just needs a
name.
The great sail of last night turned into a whimper
of a sail this morning but not before the mainsail split along it's length just
above the foot. It didn't matter that much since the tear was below
the first reefing point so we could still use the sail until the
wind died.
It's quite frightening how the mind works. Michael
was having cereal for breakfast which set me thinking about making a permanent
tie of some sort for the cereal box. Shock cord was probably overkill, perhaps
knicker elastic would serve the purpose? Would knicker elastic last? Would it
look naff? Would it be strong enough? No, there's no need to know why
I raise that particular point! And where would we find a pair of knickers
out here in the Atlantic Ocean with only Michael and me on board? Then, since
the boat was rolling more than was comfortable in the light winds and beam on
swell, my thoughts reluctantly left knickers and thought 'if only we had
the engine'.
There you have it - in no time at all a temporary
cooling water pump belt was stitched and whipped together from a length of shock
cord and some seaming twine. It was tried, tested and found to work so here
we are 8 hours later motoring gently along towards our destination. Without it
we would have had a frustrating and miserable day wallowing in swell and going
nowhere fast. And the faster we go the more amps the towing generator makes and
the more secure my pork pies feel. The three that are left, that
is.
We had a visit from a pod of bottlenose dolphins
this afternoon. They played around the bow wave for a few minutes before
disappearing off to more productive work like catching dinner. More probably
they couldn't slow down enough to match our breath-taking speed of five and bit
knots (well, I have a finite supply of shock-cord).
'Da...ad?'
'Yes.'
'Are we nearly there yet?'
'Oh. Um, three days!'
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