Bernie’s Blog - Day 5 – Thursday 28th July
2011
Leg Five: Azores to
Dartmouth
We had motored for 30 hours but this morning at 0400
there was enough breeze from the southwest to allow us to sail and for the din
of the engine noise to cease. Peace!
You do get used to the background engine noise after
awhile to the extent that when the noise stops and all is quiet it can wake you
up. A quiet warship is an unsettling sound.
We are getting back into the routine of the long ocean
passage. Watches, dhobeying (that’s clothes washing), reading, chatting,
sunbathing and eating …and boy, do we eat. With Christine back onboard for nthis
leg are eating well. Last evening it was fresh beef medallions in a lovely
pepper, onion and garlic sauce, and with rice. To follow we had either Lemon
Drizzle or Boiled Fruit cake on deck with our evening coffee as the sun went
down.
We are keeping GMT time at the moment which is one hour
behind UK. In a few days we will put our clocks forward to UK time (ie British
Summer Time). We like to keep sunrise and sunset at times that are sociable to
our routine. We rule this little world of ours so we can do what we want when we
want provided the skipper agrees!
For those who like to know these things; we have a
southerly 10 knot wind from the starboard quarter, and we are now sailing with
the asymmetric spinnaker flying from the bowsprit and making about 5 knots. The
sea has small wavelets over a gentle Atlantic swell and the sun is shining. The
washing is on the guardrail. All is well.
We topped up the fuel from three of the plastic cans this
morning and we are making water by the osmosis plant we have onboard. Peter (our
Skipper) calculates that if we had to motor all the way (we will not!) then we
could make fish n’ chips in Falmouth with the fuel we have onboard
Andy was on watch at 0900 this morning when he spotted
whale close to us on the port side. It blew then made a large intake of air and
disappeared from view. Had it been spotted earlier it would be normal to start
the engine in this situation to ensure the whale stayed away from us. They can
be larger than our 43 foot yacht and weigh several tons and could do much damage
if they hit us.
So that is it for today from the good ship ‘Susan Ayu’.
We are thinking of you.
