37:57.98N 0:08.39W En route from Ibiza to Cartegena
The Snark on The ARC
Ben Little
Sat 17 Oct 2009 16:40
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Blog from the night watch!
Chris has gone to bed after the early watch till 2
am and I am now on deck having had a restless sleep, due again to a heavily
pitching boat and unfortunately engine noise. The favourable winds died to
nearly nothing with the coming of the evening and the roughly 8 knots we
were getting under sail dropped to around 3 or 4 Knots of boat speed. With
the still quite large swell the sails were banging back and forth and it was not
much fun so we are forced to complete the second half of the journey under
engine. Maybe with dawn we will get more wind.
Before bed time we had dolphins, quite a large pod,
dancing at the prow of the boat. While we saw them almost every day in the
Adriatic this is the first we have seen around the boat since leaving Corfu
and the Ionian, Though I did see some in the distance when we were approaching
Sicily they did not come and play. It has been a very quiet night for
Chris apparently with no shipping and only the shooting stars to keep him
company. For me it is a little different with a steady stream of shipping
along the Spanish coast, most of it inshore of us so not really a worry, but now
we are heading for the coast I keep seeing lights ahead of us and it is
difficult initially to tell if they are heading our way or if indeed they are
actually on the mainland itself. Hopefully our all new LED lighting is
bright enough (certainly seems to be).
It is a lot colder at night on this trip with the
nights drawing in even here in the Mediterranean and I have all my foul weather
kit on and a hat to keep warm on deck and so far I am nice and warm. The
sky is completely clear, the stars are out tonight, and I hope we are
in for a beautiful day tomorrow after what has been some quite grey and
unsettled weather, though only a little rain.
I hope the forecast winds return tomorrow and we
get a great sail down the coast. We should arrive at Cartagena in time for
lunch and hope to overnight in the Marina there if they have space, certainly we
will want to have a nice lunch and dinner ashore and will look to do another big
sail overnight Sunday to arrive nearer to Gibraltar on Monday and finish our
sail on Tuesday arriving in Estapona before flying home.
Bye for now! need to keep my eye on an approaching
vessel.
Ben
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