Another day getting clobbered by waves along the way 20:48 N 36:18 W

Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Fri 10 Jan 2014 15:39
Dare say there are times when it has been a little lumpy and others when we have glided over rolling waves with little disturbance. When asked what their sea state was on the SSB net yesterday, Martha on s/y Silver Fern replied "Nasty" which accurately fits! During the afternoon I thought we were gonna get some rain so brought the cockpit cushions below to save them getting wet. We only had the fringes of a little squall and didn't get very wet. The wind, however, dropped to a whisper and went almost round the clock, needing us to take the wheel for a short while, after which we could proceed on course without too much problem. Several hours later, now in the dark, same thing happened, except this time, being in the dark, we needed to put the sail away and go on donk until the wind steadied again and donkusoffus.
No mess-making today - we are pleased to report. We did get fairly close to it when lunch was about to be served-up. There was buttered toast, bacon, fried eggs, last of the mushrooms and tomatoes all ready to go on plates when we took a couple of waves, causing us to twist, turn & rock vigorously. For a moment or two chaos looked inevitable - but it's surprising how 4 x hands, working energetically can keep food on 2 x plates in a severely rolling sea. It's also amazing how two aspiring adults can sit in cockpit holding plate in one hand and eat food with other when it is impossible to use knife & fork! Whilst we may have looked a mess we consumed our tasty grub and not a morsel remained. As Ray commented afterwards "That lot went down fast enough to give us indigestion!" Nevertheless it was wonderfully tasty. Thank you My Lover for some really good bacon! For evening meal we selected right this time. One of Rays extremely good 'Santa Cruz prepared' chicken casserole + extra mixed v
eg. Another scrummy meal, supported by 'glass' of icecream - topped with last two of my 'Rachel' last Birthday choc's. Thank you Rachel! Hot off the press - Rachel's sister 'Andrea' has given birth to baby boy. Congratulations Andrea & Warren. Rachel's Mum & Dad, Kay & Mike. will be chuffed as punch and no doubt wetting babies head before it dries.
Jennifer has emailed saying how enjoyable it is reading blog feeding Freya early hours of the morning - I guess this helps the milk go down better?
Latest weather gribs indicate we can expect reduced winds, veering slightly from NE to ENE. Pity really because this will be keeping us slightly north of Barbados and will inevitable add to our passage time (not a lot, just a bit!). We'll see, could change, usually does?
In meantime as I type right now it's 2330, dark as ever because we're under cloud and it's pizzing down. I do hope we can keep the wind because the cockpit is not a nice place to be right now!
0500: Not a pleasant night. Wind isn't being kindly consistent (unusual) and sea state resembles bag of turbulent nuts. At 2400 thought I could have slept soundly. No chance!
The morning, since twilight has been quite nice. We have been able to deploy our gib as well. This benefits the poled-out genoa by keeping more pressure between the two sails. Nevertheless we had to bring the gib inagain for a while due to the sloppy seas causing sails to flog! Now we've both sails out steering good course at a respectable 6kn.

One amusing incident happened after replacing an empty Fairy Liquid with a new (larger) one. The sodden thing leaked in the sink. About half the contents made it's way down the plug'ole and we have been whitnessing copious amounts of frothy soap-suds coming up all galley plug holes for some time, until now! On top of this, I replaced a used-up shower gel with a new one, which is exactly same. The used'un had lived a certain way on the window shelf for weeks & weeks and hadn't moved at all since departing Tenerife. So it makes sense to put the new full'un in same place. Not a good decision because late yesterday afternoon, when going for a pee, I couldn't help to observe most of the contents evenly spread across the shower floor, slowly making it's way down the drain'ole. Naturally I returned to the galley and extracted a suitable implement to scrape up what-ever I could. I even put the entire recovered contents into the old plastic bottle (new one having broke open when hit floor). I
n order to reduce unexpected consumption of Fairy Liquid & shower gel, strict precautions are now being observed!

In last 24 hours we have shortened our distance towards Barbados by 135NM, so there is now 1,416NM to go and we have made our way through 148NM as measured on our log). Oh yes, must mention having completed first 1,000NM (are we there yet?)!!!
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Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham = m0hng
At 10/01/2014 07:31 (utc) our position was 20°59.98'N 035°45.90'W
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