Day 20 of Atlantic Crossing
Swiftwing
Fri 14 Dec 2007 22:47
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Lat/Lon at 1200 GMT: 13:30.90N
52:27.75W
An exellent run today,
159miles in 24 hours, giving us an average speed of 6.6 knots and breaking our
previous record.
Alan went for his daily
constitutional up the foredeck this morning and found no less than 8 fish! Word
has obviously gone around that the safest place for fish in the Atlantic is
around 'SFV' Swiftwing. Alan told me with a grin that had one of the fish hit an
inch or so higher, I would've been rudely awakened as it soared through the
fore-hatch and skelped me in the face. Neil wasted no time
in taking the opportunity to do his impression of me being woken up
for a night watch. Charming.
Master navigator Alan
Sinclair allowed me to help with his sextant sights this afternoon. The whole
thing still baffles me, it may take a few more lessons before I could cope
without my GPS. We did, however, manage to come within 10 miles of the GPS
reading, so I'd call that a success.
Our resident cordon bleu cook
Douglas "Delia" Reid, who somehow finds the time to moonlight as a skipper,
cooked the incredible meal at lunch time today, making us a fine soup which kept
us going all day. He even allowed us a coke with it, and brought the good news
that there would be enough for half a can each in a couple of days time, we
truly are spoiled.
We felt it was only fair to
include in this blog the recipe for one of Dougie's, now famous
meals,
Swiftwing Skipper's Soupie
Scoff
Ingredients;
2 large tins Full English
Breakfast
1 bowl Last Night's Pasta
1 small bowl Fat Free Tomato Soup
1 tin Backed Beans
**Skipper's top tip** "Encourage crew members
to do washing up by calling them slackers and other such verbal abuse, works
every time"
We picked someone up on the radio today, our first
in a while. Keen to talk to another boat and exchange stories, Dougie answered
the call. As it turned out he was looking for a weather forecast and wasn't
really up for chatting about anything else, oh well, at least we're not totally
alone.
Finally, the Swiftwing public relatons department
would like to thank all those who have emailed to tell us they are enjoying the
blog, in particular one 'Big John' who would no doubt have contributed to the
blog, had injury not prevented him from joining us. I'm told he was injured
during the heroic rescue of a puppy from a burning building. We all wish him a
speedy recovery.
John
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