Day 33 and 34 combined
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48:26.000n
24:26.672w Distance to home:
991 miles Distance run
today: 106 miles Course
075 We sent a blog update
yesterday but you don’t appear to have seen it. Here is a combined update for today and
yesterday. As you can see, we are
sailing again. And boy, does it
feel good! We have also now cracked
the 1000 miles to go mark. We have
sailed well over 3500 since Domestic We were able to get on
deck yesterday morning and enjoyed some sun, although the wind is cold it’s nice
to have some clear skies! Sunday night we kept
dinner easy and had a couple of tins of ‘Hot Chicken Curry’ the heat in these
was mild compared to the power of Tim’s homemade curry. A couple rounds of quiz
and some Rummy filled the evening nicely. Speaking of Rummy….after
99 games Tim is now leading by 63 points, Jez is second and Wills is now
trailing by nearly 100 points, it would be more if it wasn’t for his constant
effort to keep his score for each round as low as possible. We have labelled
this trait as ‘doing an Angus’, some of the veteran readers among you may
remember when Tim, Wills and Angus sailed Sadie the first leg from the UK to
Fuertaventura back in 2013. Angus being the laid back sailor he is, began to
give into the fact that he wasn’t winning and would just collect the lowest
point score possible each round, a theory that worked for him because he often
finished second most evenings (before the days of the championships) leaving
Wills to be last with his ‘gung hoe’ approach to the game. This year it’s a
different story Panic over, we found more
teabags yesterday; Tim had a secret stash and made Jez’s day when he presented
them to him! Phew!! Tuesday
update Normal shipboard life has
resumed, Will is sleeping, Tim is on housekeeping duties and Jez is drinking our
newly discovered tea.
It’s almost warm and we
are contemplating washing. A
process made more complicated as we lost the bucket from the cockpit when things
were a little hairy. It may be
easier to wait till the wind dies at some point, lather up and jump
in. Sailing Hove To overnight waiting
for the last of our blow under and this morning we set off toward
We had used a brief lull
in the wind last night to put back together the various bits of the boat that
the wind and waves had knocked about over the last 3 days. The most important of these was the
Monitor Windvane which had taken a pounding from large breaking waves and was
out of action but is now doing it’s job as well as ever. We expect the wind to
stay South Easterly through today and tomorrow and we shall be able to point
better as it eases but we are knocking off the miles once
again. Tuesday update
It’s gone to plan. Good progress overnight and we are now
up to full sail in about 15 kts from the Southeast and waiting for the south
westerly’s promised us this morning by a passing tanker. Natural
History The strong Easterlies are
not just messing up our schedules.
It’s not good for the migrating birds either. We had a swallow trying desperately to
and on board this morning and yesterday a House Martin (or Swift, Jez can’t tell
the difference) took up temporary residence in a cockpit cuddy to shelter from
the wind. Both looked pretty
knackered and we don’t rate their chances of making a
landfall. The fish have a slightly
better chance of survival too as one of our rods was reduced to several small
pieces by a wave. We had it on a
strop so have retained the reel and we have another so normal service should be
resumed shortly. Tuesday update
Tim has been watching a
kittiwake who has spent all morning settling on the sea behind Sadie watching us
move for 100m then taking off and repeating the process. We can’t see what the bird gets out of
this and it has finally given up after a couple of hours. Now he’s gone, he may
have missed his chance – we are fishing once more. Wills had been awake for
five minutes when Jez spotted a pod of Pilot Whales only 10 meters off the port
quarter, there must have been at least six and they were surfacing regularly
displaying their rounded noses and dorsal fins! It was about time. We were owed a whale after the weekend
we had and were spoilt with six! And a new bird. Very much passing by, it didn’t hang
about. Wingspan of well over a
metre, White overall with wing-tips and final third of the wings black. Long pointy beak. Constant flapping motion. A bit like an anorexic stork but without
the long trailing legs. Any ideas
? Today’s
Responses Monday
Joe – Yep, you can
probably smell me from there. Joe / Harvey - Arrrrrrrrgh. Shiver me timbers ! Lizzie – Abseiling and
Archery ! Beekeeping and Baking
next week maybe ? Tuesday
Sam Courtney / John
Clarke – can you sub me for John Meredith.
Em updated me on Sam’s FB comments. Very sad, all the best for
Thursday. Em – I should be back to
watch some football then. Sorry re blog – we thought it had gone
out. Sadie |