Bernie’s Blog - Day 10 – Wednesday 3rd August
2011
Leg Five: Azores to
Dartmouth
No two days are the same it seems. Yesterday, following
Monday‘s ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ day, was a lovely day to be at sea - calm and sunny -
but now we are back to more of the lumpy stuff. At least we are headed in the
right direction with the wind behind us and we should be off Ushant Thursday
morning. We will then have about 150 miles to run so we should be back in the
southwest sometime on Friday. As to the sweepstake for estimated time south of
the Lizard, I reckon it will be either Andy, Christine or Darrell. Peter and I
are out of it.
But back to yesterday. What a day. In the space of two
hours we made three different whale sightings. One very close by, probably about
100 yards, and two a few miles away with great plumes of spray rising from them,
they having come to the surface from probably very deep. This leg has certainly
been the best for whale sightings – five in a week. And to cap it all, Peter
landed a 3kg Skipjack Tuna on his lure named Mr Darcy and, within 1½ hours we
were eating fresh pan fried tuna. Rick Stein ‘eat your heart out’.
This catch is the first Peter has made from his yacht in
the 10 years since he acquired Susan Ayu. His patience and fortitude have paid
off at last. His other lures, which have met with zero success thus far, are
named: ‘Dixey Tricks’ and ‘Saigon Sally’. Well done Peter & ‘Mr
Darcy’!
On a technical point of possible interest we do use a
large amount of electricity – mostly the fridge and the automatic steering
system and this requires us to top-up the batteries about twice a day by running
the engine in neutral as a generator.
The current sea state is likely to reduce our enthusiasm
for food today. When such conditions exist we tend to help ourselves as
required. We might share soup or sandwiches as a crew but with lots of ‘Cuppa
Soups’ and biscuits and dried fruit onboard it is often better to eat
individually. Not everyone feels that hungry on days like this; and a little
abstinence will not harm us as we are certainly very well fed on the calmer
days.
Darrell has just shown his collection of photos held on
his iPad 2.
The continental shelf lies just 90 miles ahead. There the
water depth suddenly reduces from 4000 metres to (10,000 ft) to 150 metres (1600
ft). We hope for a relatively smooth transition.
So, that’s all for today from the north western end of
Biscay. We’ll be home soon; get the soap powder in and the washing machines
ready.
