Day 3

Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Thu 22 Sep 2011 19:45
03°59.6662N 110°38.9120E
 
Fri 23/9 0200
 
Not exceptional progress the last 36hr, but some terrific sailing.
Light breeze for Thu morning so motorsailing until the wind filled in around midday to 10-12 kn from a favourable direction to set the kite. 6 hrs of perfect sailing conditions under spinnaker before the first sniff of the typical evening squall was detected. Quick kite drop, 1 reef in the main and shortly after a 20kn breeze kicked in from the NW. We managed to dodge the rain squalls so trucked along at 8-9kn for a couple of hrs. Seas got messy after dark and wind eased slightly and shifted back to the WSW as the GRIBs instructed it to.
 
A successful MOB drill during the afternoon under full sail resulted in me not loosing the sacrificial lifejacket, as I was half expecting, which acted as our "victim". And a small pod of dolphins playing in the bow wave for quite a while had the Burmese squealing like school-girls. At least we now know there's life in the sea here, wish the sashimi type would eat our pink rubber squid.
 
During the late afternoon blow, 3 small migrating swallows decided we were large enough to qualify as land and took refuge, initially, in the cockpit. Once they noticed the open companionway there was a Hitchcock moment as they buzzed around the Saloon landing on heads, shoulders and anywhere else. As I write this one is perched on the monitor leaving his own interpretation of a "pasttrack" running down the screen. Our experience shows that it's a sad fact of life that if a migrating bird lands onboard, no matter what we try, it'll be dead by morning. (Will have to keep Evan away from them - I know how much he likes spatchcock).
 
SJB