Birthday Girl

Samaritan
Tim Vaughan
Mon 10 Jun 2019 05:16
05.00 Monday 10th June - early blog today as IT’S MANDY’S BIRTHDAY (and I’m away again....)

Happy Birthday to a very special lady, will hopefully see you tomorrow love XXXXXXXX I’m sure Chris and Chrissie will be looking after you in Ponta - what a team!

It finally warmed up a bit yesterday but remained dull most of the day. It was nice being able to stay in shorts and a light fleece in the cockpit, even overnight. It was another day on stb tack and there was the usual sail configuration changes to try and keep the boat speed up as the wind went up and down Generally, there has always been a little more wind than forecast and we still spent most of the day with a reef in the main and varying degrees of headsail.

(Visibility has just dropped as I type so I have put the radar on and can hear the batteries groaning as they are asked to provide an other 4 Amps.)

After days on one tack, sailing pretty much in a straight line, my thoughts are turning to my final approach to San Miguel and Ponta (anyone would think I’m driving an aeroplane). It looks like coming in from the east but the wind is going to drop and I need to keep a decent wind angle as Samaritan doesn’t do dead down wind and I’m not flying spinnakers on my own at my age. Anyway, I don’t have one.

What else can I tell you, well....

I managed tea before midnight, it was homemade corned beef hash - blimey it was heavy, not my best. However, being hopefully my last night, tonight is steak night. I have been saving a piece of fillet steak which I plan to devour later. I might even have it on a plate, sitting down, instead of out of a bowl stood up in the galley....

Very little action on the water yesterday, one cargo boat and a yacht on AIS and another two birds. I’m going all out whale watching today.

Good news on the noise in the cabin. After hours of sitting in various locations inside the boat waiting for it to occur, not to mention hanging over the side, pulling and pushing the rigging etc, I have concluded that it’s a weird splashing noise that occurs inside the keel box of my lifting keel. It still sounds like a tin inside a cupboard!

I came across the 2nd half of Les Miserables on my iPad so was able to finish off listening to that. It was reassuring to know Javert is finally out of the picture and Marius got the girl.

Re the beard - have got a spot on my chin which could impact my decision on whether to shave or not. Defer to tomorrow.

Oh, and did I tell you, it’s Mandy’s Birthday today!

Finally an Editor’s note - sorry for all the typo’s and erroneous words and spelling, not easy typing on a boat and the auto correction doesn’t help!