day2 south of GC
Snap
Thu 10 Dec 2015 09:45
26:48N 17:05W Sog 6-7 down from 7-8, wind 15knots down from 20+ from NE, sea 2-3m down from 3 overnight. Cog to be advised - I could go very south on 226 towards the Crap Verde islands as stingo call them and he’s been, or more west to twenty thirty - 20N30W, a popular waypoint on this gig. At the moment I’m dithering between the two at 235. If I do go to 2030 i’ll be very careful - with several hundred or even thousands of boats putting that in the GPS, it only needs a few pressing the “track” button to have an unexpected multi-boat pileup. We could blame Jimmy Cornell, and the ARC - they all say you’ve got to go there.
All fine overnight. I slept at least 6 hours in bits, cockpit companionway quite good with the new carpet I bought, wedged in with a beanbag, or the long flat stern seat, also with beanbag, not so good for being unconscious but easy to see instruments whilst dozing and mostly supine. But jeez it’s cold at night. Hard to believe Africa is next door.
The wind picked up when clear of the island, sails up and down a few times is very easy with the furling main. Finally settle to NE, and sea up to 3m so i did the reefing thing. I am asking BX Wx for routing - do I go to 20N30W which is on 800nm away on a course of 250 degrees, or more South towards Cape Verde island on 226 I wonder? I’m dithering at the moment on 235. Sarah hates the stuff about boring sailing. Must be the same with other people too - “can you talk about something OTHER than the moon landings, Buzz?” So, it’s a beige bit of carpet alright? And I bought it at IKEA in Lanazarote, quite cheap, and then the non-slip underneath in Gran Canaria only 3bucks a metre. Should have bought more but all shut on the last day. "Non-slip" in Spanish is “anti-zlissante”so it’s worth buying some just to get everyone saying that name.
I have mentioned the food things have I? I went shopping loads of times, but only for small amounts of stuff each time. Lots of Alpen, in fact, all of it from one supermarket. I expect that oatmeal has blipped up on the commodities market. I should change the boat name to ALPEN TRANSPORTER all down the side like the big ships
Oh and I also bought a lettuce! Phew! All the female readers are heaving a huge sigh of relief now, because buying a lettuce is the very opposite of buying beer and Pringles, and it clearly signifies civilised living “I’m so pleased to see he’ll be eating properly” and all that stuff. Of course, I’ll probably just nibble a bit of the lettuce now and again and then throw most of it out in a week or so, same as what happens to all lettuces. But nevertheless lettuces carry the indelible mark of healthiness, somehow. Even though they probably have the essential nutritional content of grass clippings.
So, aside from the killer lettuce gambit, I didn’t bother with much else from the same bit of the supermarket. I think I’ll be fine without carrots, tomatoes, beetroot, cabbage, all that low grade rabbit food. I did get a lot of oranges though, some potatoes and a dozen kiwi fruit. Ooh, i did it again! - saved the kiwi fruit till last in that list, another very high-scoring purchase in the eyes of the concerned contingent, almost as good as the lettuce. It doesn’t matter about the diesel or tools and spares and stuff - everything is bound to be fine cos I’ve got a flippin lettuce and some kiwi fruit on board. Yeah and i didn’t forget the onions either. Nothing else to worry about now, is there?
Also in the food department, I just had some m’s. Should be m+m’s, but somehow they’re all smashed up, which i reckon makes them m’s. Perhaps they explode a bit in the heat? They’ve been here a few months. I’m hoping that Martin can perhaps do some experiments and/or research on why a whole bag of m+m’s should be in small bits not whole m+m’s. M+m’s first came out in the mid-forties in America. I reckon they nicked the idea from Smarties, over forty years old by that time. Came over to help with D-day but pinched the smarties idea at the same time. The m’s were the initials of some of the leading lights of the venture, one of them perhaps Mars, and the other i think the president of Hershey who had to be cut in on the idea since he’d cornered the chocolate ration.
Oh, and I found all the email addresses, sorry. I have been using apple things, where you click on the box to bring up the list, not the field name as per Windows. Sorry. Easy mistake to make, perhaps due to mismatched so-called user-intuitive software. Obviously once it’s intuitive one way, every other way is not intuitive. Mike says I shouldn’t just press all the buttons quickly and hope. He didn’t offer any sensible alternatives, though.
Breakfast I think…