Early morning off the Moroccan Coast
Rich's 2023 ARC+ Risque Business Blog
Richard Hurd
Fri 11 Oct 2019 08:11
Hello from Xplorer once again. It’s 9:45 on Friday 11 Oct 2019 and daylight is here once again after a very dark night. Heavy cloud cover meant little or no moonlight and very variable winds meant we’ve had to motor much of the night.
An interesting night with many weird flashing lights all about - some red, some green and some white. Most were flashing and it seemed we had just entered the latest Ibizan nightclub at times. Initially we weren’t sure if they were physically connected by a fishing net or similar, so we plotted a course around the last one in any group. However, becoming a bit bolder we decided to go through them and we made it out the other side. Strange as there was over 1000m depth, so a bit deep for lobster pots, especially as we’re nearly 40 miles off the Moroccan coast.
Just overtaken another yacht heading for the Canaries for the ARC. They’re in no hurry so happy to sail in the light winds. After saying that, we’ve just been hit by a gust from nowhere - 4 to 5 kn on the stb quarter to 25kn on the port bow. 5 mins of that and back to 2kn from not sure where.
We’re doing 2 hour single man watches during the night and then 3 hour watches during the day. I’ve started at 0900 to midday when David takes over.
That’s enough waffle from me - need to watch out for flying fish.
Bye for now😁⛵️