Bernie’s Blog - Day 10 – Wednesday 3^rd 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.