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