Off Belfast Lough

Saxon Blue's Blog
Harvey Jones and Andrea Stokes
Thu 6 May 2010 06:34
54:42.28N 005:25.06W

Sun is up. Sea is moderate. Everyone else is in bed so it's very peaceful!

We're just passing outside Belfast Lough so I can see Northern Ireland to Port and the hills of Galloway in Scotland to Starboard. There were a lot of capital letters in that sentence. Perhaps I'm writing Winnie the Pooh and this is a Very Important Missage.

The 4 hours on, 4 hours off watch system is much better. I was on from 8pm to midnight which was OK although I was tired by the end. I managed to get some sleep through until 4am with some wild dreams. Andrea was still up at 4am so she helped me wake up with tea and chat. I'm on now until 8am and then I'll try to get a bit more kip so I can be wide awake when we close the Mull of Kintyre hopefully around midday. We're starting to pick up a bit of favourable tide now so we may even make Oban before dark tonight.

There were a few fishing boats around as we passed Dublin and we could see the lights in the dark sky. Didn't see any sign of the Isle of Man, though, probably as we were too far away. A bit of rain in the night but our amazing cockpit cover kept us all dry. I can't imagine wanting to sail in the wet without it.

The diesel is still churning away but it's a comforting noise now. The motion of the boat is lively but as we're so used to it, that's no problem. Flocks of birds are passing us on a mission to somewhere but not much other sign of life.

Harvey

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com