22:50.9N 26:21.6W 26th November night first watch
The Snark on The ARC
Ben Little
Thu 26 Nov 2009 20:31
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Hi Bloggers,
A very relaxing day today, we had good wind but not
too much of it we had all our sails up at one time or another, but the best set
was just coloured sails with no main. We have taken it down for the night
and also to make some repairs as it seems there are some areas which look
like they could tear so we will strengthen them with tape before they do.
I was on the mast today putting patches on the mainsail and re-tying the
top two mast runners which had become detached from the sail. they
seem to attach in a very haphazard way, all the rest are screwed and bolted
in. These are sewn with tape, I have used electrical flex instead I
hope it will do the job. my efforts at sewing tape have lasted a
month but I am not sure with a needle on a pitching deck with only one hand so
I improvised.
Thanksgiving was a great success I
hope. In any case we enjoyed to food I am now getting some coffee into me
to help me stay awake for the next 4 hours. Dugald pointed out that when
you go from morning shift till night shift it is hard as you in
effect get up at 4 am and run through till midnight. I am OK with it
however as I do get an uninterrupted 8 hours (subject to requests for
help).
No fish today, I have improvised a hand
trolling line, however we were talking to another boat and they mentioned that
if we are doing around 9-10 knots we will only catch really big fish, now we are
slower perhaps we will find something we can land. Our rod is shot however
broken by the big fish so we with have to haul what we catch over the side by
hand. Now we are doing the better speeds of 6-7 knots for a while of
course we don't have the gear any more. Our friendly dolphins did put in
an appearance today which was great for Chris and Dugald who had yet to see
any. We really need our wildlife spotter Chris Lander who was great and
finding the Turtles on their trip south. Come to think of it we have not
really been looking out for them here, maybe they are
around.
After all the debate on the last 2 blogs we did
travel south all last night and gibed back onto the direct course this morning
and we have stayed with it all day under various sails but nothing too
adventurous. We seem to have lucked out as boats only 50 miles or less
north have very little wind and are heading south to where we are or even
further. I am not sure we really want the big winds we are coasting along
in 12-14 knots which is a bit light bit it is forecast to pick up 15-20 is what
we are after preferably North East rather than just Easterly (Julie do your stuff). As I write the wind is dropping
off so I better down load the wind forecast and get to planning, maybe we will
head south even though the chocolate has melted, we have not had to use the air
con yet however. The good news is that our current wind direction is
allowing us to head south west, best of both worlds.
bye for now
Ben
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