Day 29
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46:23.580n
28:44.450w Distance to home:
1198 miles Distance run
today: 145 miles Course
075 A yachtsman is sailing
along when the boom knocks him on the head and he falls overboard. When he comes round, he’s on a beach.
The sand is dark red. He can’t
believe it. The sky is dark
red. He walks around a bit and sees
that there is dark red grass, dark red birds and dark red fruit on the dark red
trees’ He’s shocked when he sees
that his skin is starting to turn dark red too. “Oh no !” he cries, “I’ve
been marooned !” Domestic
Now that yours has
cleared up a bit, we are going to talk about our weather. We’ve had 3 days of
northerlies and hope for more of the same as they are bringing us home at a fair
lick. The trouble with northerly
winds is that they come from the north and for us that means from the Canadian
and Greenland Ice sheets. It’s cold
! We are all wearing
jumpers and jackets, Will and Tim are wearing sea boots and deck shoes. Jez is toughing it out and refusing to
wear anything but bare feet, but that may be because he only brought one pair of
socks and is keeping them for “best”. We are each sleeping
under 2 sleeping bags and the highpoint of our day so far has been the 30 minute
engine run to charge batteries during which the motor gets hot enough to warm
through and act as a storage heater, releasing warmth for the next few
hours. Even the Nutella has
congealed in the pot and we are cutting lumps out for
breakfast! Moan
over. Everything else is
fine. The boat is at a comfortable
angle, the food remains great and we have enough beer and rum in hand to cope
with even the most pessimistic forecasts for a return to
civilisation. Tim is having a shave in
the cockpit after a wash downstairs yesterday. Jez and Wills are in sync again
for washing, they saw the sun and took it as an opportunity to wash in the
cockpit but the buckets of icy cold northern Atlantic water do more than take
your breath away, neither can quite describe how cold it really was!
Feeling fresh and clean
we enjoyed tuna sweetcorn (tinned) for lunch on a slightly smaller loaf this
morning due to the lack of proving temperatures. We have stored one portion of
tuna in the freezer and still have another fresh but tonight we are having
gammon, cabbage and smash! Sailing
We double reefed the main
yesterday afternoon and have left it alone since. It’s pulling well in 18 – 20 knots from
a little forward of the beam.
We are then reefing the
genoa to cope with the many fluctuations as sustained gusts and lulls pass over
us, usually heralded by rain or cumulus clouds and each time we do so we have to
rebalance the sails and sort the monitor windvane so that it maintains our
course of about 80 degrees. So there is little rest
for us on watch overnight but the reward was a 24 hour mileages in the 140’s,
peaking at 149 overnight. Our best
ever such mileage was a 154 on the way from the Canaries to
The “distance to go”
figure above is that of a straight line route to the Nass Beacon off
The wind and weather are
of more direct importance to us as they dictate the speed and direction that we
can travel so please join us in asking the weather gods for
In the meantime, we will
take what we get. Natural
History Too rough to spot whales
or anything else yesterday, they could have been alongside and we’d have missed
them. Better chance today but still
lots of whitecaps and 2m waves so we can’t see far. New bird to report. More like a more delicate herring gull
with gray and white topsides and pure white underside. Yellow beak, 70cm wingspan, continuous
flapping in flight rather than the effortless glide of the Storm Petrels or
Sheerwaters. Today’s
responses Em – Running and hurdling
of deadly snakes. New Olympic sport
? Lizzie – put some banana
bread in the freezer for us. Richard / Gran Jen –
Thanks for news updates, very welcome here. Dave S – hope this means
the start of summer then. Bye for now
Sadie |