Day 7 - Position 16:28.546N 032:14.458W
Stravaig
Mon 1 Dec 2008 08:29
you about today! So far we've seen the odd bird here and there, thousands of
flying fish and no boats whatsoever! That's about the sum of today (Sunday)
so far!
Unfortunately the winds were so light last night that the weather and wind
department decided that we were better to take the sails down and put the
donkey on rather than wallowing around in the middle of this pond, so this
is what we duly did. It is interesting being on the foredeck of a boat in
this swell taking sails down in the pitch dark at 3.30am while all of you
are tucked up in bed. We know where we'd all rather be!!
The wind got up slightly at 9am so up went the sails and off went the engine
- thank goodness for that! The winds have been fairly light again today and
only occasionally rising to the heady heights of 13 or 14 knots which means
that we continue to make very slow progress. At this rate we will be lucky
if we make it back in time for Santa!! On a more positive note, the good
thing is that we are most definitely heading west now and so we now heading
in the right direction and so every mile we travel is a mile closer to the
finish line!!
According to the reports we are getting we are lying 29th in the fleet with
9 racing boats ahead of us so technically we are 20th. There is seemingly
now only one other Oyster in front of us. This is all very difficult to
believe though! How could others possibly be going any slower than we are!
We haven't heard any reports of anyone committing harry carey yet!
As we are sure you all know, today is St Andrew's Day, the soon to be
National Holiday of Scotland! Given that there is so little happening around
here just now we Scots decided to create our own entertainment this
afternoon - so we dressed up in kilts and did a bit of a mid-atlantic
highland fling to the music of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards! What a
sight!! See the picture for yourself! We are now hoping that the flying fish
that have plagued us this week will now go off and pester other boats in the
fleet and leave us alone for the rest of the journey having seen this
sight!!! To continue the theme, tea tonight was haggis with mashed potatoes
etc (yum yum!), courtesy of Angus, plus a 'death by chocolate' cake
decorated with a saltire, kindly prepared by Fi. We think there may soon be
a market for cakes like this!
Once again the winds are very light tonight so we have unfortunately had to
resort to putting the engine on once more! Very frustrating!
Tomorrow we should be about half way there so in order to spice things up a
little we have decided to throw a halfway fancy dress party!! The theme is
the 'phonetic alphabet' so any ideas greatly received! We can't wait since
this will be the first time that any of us will have let alcohol pass our
lips on this journey. Should be interesting! One drink and we'll all be
gaga!!!!
Good night. More tomorrow.
