3 days completed and likely 4 to go, towards Ria de Muros 40:47N 019:28W

Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Tue 8 Jul 2014 11:03
Start of day 4 Noon on Tuesday 8th July 2014.
In position 40º47'N 019º28'W Generally heading N-NE (tacking) at about 5kn Presently close-reaching on full gib and full mainsl. Wind now NE F3. 1½m seas. Very overcast and occasional rain. Ria de Muros, NW Spain is 073º(T) 483NM Dist Run by log in last 24 hours 125NM Distance made good towards Ria de Moros is 100NM.

Yesterday afternoon started with a bit of fun. The game's called "Find that clunking noise?". We have an occasionally irritating noise, which comes and goes, noticeable when sailing. We've already attempted to silence all the different clunks, thumps, thuds, bangs and rattles by stuffing the lkes of hats, soft cushions, towels, kitchen roll, gloves, bags etc into different cupboards & cabinets where there are things that can move about enough to make an annoying noise when everything else is peaceful. The next unusual noise usually manifests itself when just about to make ZZZZZs. At that time what ever comes to hand can be used to produce thhe wanted silence! Bottles always seem to be the culprit when least expected. Just before lunch I asked Sue to listen to a noise, which we have identified is caused by our rudder or autopilot. After autopilot motor problems we are particularly sensitive to this subject matter. Also, after steering several minutes by hand the noise has amazingly si
lenced itself for now. Anyway, whilst we were doing our tests, Sue with her head below our aft cabin floor & me in cockpit, communicating via our open aft cabin hatch, our fishing rod and line, to which squiddy depends on to keep squiddy attached to the yacht, suddenly burst into life. When I say 'burst' I mean "erupted"! Priority 1: slow the rate of line running out. I tried lifting the rod and adjusting the reel to slow things down. No chance! If I had taken hold of the rod it was a gonna. Next move: slow the yacht down instead. I started to reef-away our genoa because this would likely slow the yacht from >7kn to something like 3'ish kn. I had the genoa almost fully away when I thought I heard something 'knock-over' in the cockpit? Nothing apparent and nothing to be seen in wrong place on cockpit floor? I turns to make my way to the rod and 'bingo' there ain't anything new gonna visit us attached by means of that rod because the line had all run out and ruptured couple of metres
from it's bitter end. Bye bye squiddy, squiddy bye bye! Genoa unfurled and lets resume sailing again. I'm now sorting out what I wanna put on our rod to be able to fish again when I notice we're suddenly sailing rather swiftly. More like racing! Oops, missed that one. Dive down wind and put 2 reefs in genoa, then close reaching put two reefs in mainsl. Steady as she goes now doing about seven kts 'under full control again'. Ten or fifteen minutes later the wind reduces and we're gonna slow down too much so we unfurl genoa & mainsl. Now we're as we where, except for squiddy! It took another lunch and almost 2 hours before we had enough wind to be close reaching 6-7 kn again. As for the line, bits and pieces and next squiddy.......... I've recovered the hook from a much older squiddy, the one with it's skirt almost munched-away by Caribbean squiddy killers. This hook, together with the sparkling new squiddy - gifted from Annie & Mike few weeks ago) is now attached to new dyneema 100l
b line and now out on test. Shame we lost the old'un this morning. Ironically we had a good bite early this morning, which escaped before I sarted to reel it in, so these waters look interesting? As for the cause of loss of our gear....... if it was attached to something that big there's no chance of landing it on Ticketeeboo! I'm thinking the lost squiddy could have become caught on a fishing net, rope, item of clothing, or something else in the water. If it was a fish though....... neither Sue nor I wanted to see it close-up!
Message for Annie & Mike - "Flat-nose squiddy is swimming good. Thank you."
No chance of good sleep overnight because wind strength was up and down needing sails to be reefed/unreefed from time to time. At about 0600 the wind began to noticeably veer from NW to N and by 10:00 N to NE. All as generally expected. We decided to tack a little earlier then 10:00 because of impending presence of some nasty low dense cloud to our E, which we could avoid at the time. It seems ages since last sailing on gib & mainsl, which is a good as it gets for us in these conditions. We holding 45º to apparent wind, which is more than we can get if prepared for a bumpier ride 'close-hauling', which we'de like to avoid 'cause close reaching is more comfortable and easier on Ticketeeboo. Ocean cruising is not about being close-hauled unless completely necessary at the time! With gales to our E, blowing NE F8, between us and Portugal, heading mostly N'ly for now is an appealing option for us.







Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham callsign = m0hng
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