ARC Log - Day 15
Sulana's Voyage
Alan and Sue Brook
Sun 5 Dec 2010 20:02
Day 15 and, as at 20:00 UTC, our position on the 5th of December is now looking quite a bit more comfortable than it was. We only have 1,053 nautical miles left to run to the finish now.
Well, today was a bit different!
Firstly, we can proudly confirm we did NOT have to use our engine last night, so engine hours are still at Zero. We are seriously in the Trade Winds and they are blowing well, at between 12-18 knots from the NE-E. Noon-to-noon run for the last day was 176 miles, which makes a very nice change.
The future on the Trades continuing to St. Lucia also looks rosy and set for some time still to come. We could even be in for the 12/13th now.. holding our breath, but not counting on it.
We were beam reaching under full cutter rig, with our big white headsails doing a fine job all morning, as the spinnaker would over-power us at this wind strength and direction, probably leading to many broaches, which we do not want. However, later in the afternoon we got the forecast 10 degree veered wind, which will then allowed us to give it a go, set the big kite and push for the finish. Now we have 1.5 knots more speed and are almost on target for a 200 mile day, with luck.
Secondly, in case you are wondering about our seemingly poor performance in recent reports, the ARC Rally control office sent us this note today :
"Hello Alan,
We didn't get an 06 or 12Z report from your tracker for 05/12.
Please could you send us your position to this email address.
Also, please check and see if there is a small button on the underside of the tracker. If there is, press and hold for 3 seconds, then release. This may start it polling again.
thanks
Jeremy
ARC Rally Control"
So that explains the past two days' spurious position reports for Sulana.
We are NOT currently in 104th position, but are probably doing a fair bit better than that, as we had, by 12:00 UTCtoday, run over 200 miles since our last reported position!
Thirdly, this morning, using James' personalised, custom lure, made of plastic piping and rope strand (check out photo), to resemble a small yellowfin tuna, Alan caught us another fine fish, a 4 foot long, 10+ kg Wahoo! The Wahoo didn't like it one little bit and put up a good fight, but an extra gear was found on the reel and, after slowing Sulana down to a walking pace, it was reeled in for Ben to gaff it.
It was a magnificent, quite beautiful, fish, giving us at least 4 days' worth of extra fish fillets to go into the freezer alongside the rest of our Longbilled Spearfish (Marlin). Needless to say, we dined on fresh Wahoo for lunch today, though!
In trying to hoist the fish up on the scales to weigh it, unfortunately, as is the way with ocean sailing, the final word, however, was had by the Wahoo. As James passed Alan the tail to lift up for photos, the boat rolled and the dead fish slid across the aft deck and its head went just past Alan's right foot.
On looking down, Alan saw the aft deck was awash with blood, but not from the fish! Its jaws had been open and the razor-sharp, scalpel-edged teeth had slid across his big toe, slicing open a 3 cm long gash. Call in Nurse Sue who made a fine running repair using several steri-strip wound closures, finished off with a best Annie Heathcote (WMYC) First Aid course dressing.
Peter immediately volunteered to help out too, by offering to amputate Alan's big toe!
That generous gesture being turned down, he instead chose to compose the following ditty:
"Alan caught a little fish.
It bit him on the foot.
And everywhere that Alan went,
His bloody foot he put!"
NB. Author's note : Variation on "Mary had a little lamb".
Viz. No blood on my clean decks, linen or carpets!
Thanks for that, Peter!
Fourthly - We appear to have left behind us, for the moment, the area of nightly "Triffids", as only one small one was sighted yesterday evening. This was one which, nonetheless, still struck us with rain, just as we were starting to enjoy our supper in the cockpit. The extra breeze meant we had to bear away 20 degrees and ease sheets a touch, so we could heel less, sail more upright and eat our meal on the table like civilised, cruising yachting folk should.
Finally - You should get a better picture of how we are doing in tomorrow's Position Reports from the ARC office. Let's hope so.
In passing, we thought you also might like the photo taken of our track to date, to show just how far we have had to go out of the way in our search to avoid strong adverse headwinds and find the tricky trades!
To close, as Douglas Adams said it in 'A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy',
"And thank you for the fish!"
All the best again for tonight, from Peter and Alan.
