13:56.7N

36:40.57W

 

what three words : flyaway.parental.grinders

(by steve)

It dawned on me after yesterday's post that posting the lyrics to a country and western song you have sat and written on a boat in the Atlantic could well be an early warning sign of having lost the plot. I'm happy to report, however, that we are all doing well and no one has (yet) gone crazy. Although that is potentially what someone who was going crazy would claim.

 

Today has been different to every other day. I wrote a few days ago about the routine but today was upended somewhat by the weather. Our usual morning coffee in the sunshine got under way but soon after it was clear the day wasn't going to deliver in the way that it has done up to now. We had a drizzly night with the rain showers coming more frequently through to morning and this continued through most of the day. No sunshine. No sunset cocktails at the captain's table. We've spent the day watching black rain clouds approach us from the east and pass over us leaving us soaking wet in it's wake. We have had everything from 30 knots to 8 knots today and all in between and it looks like tonight is going to be much the same. For the first time on our trip we had to eat dinner below deck having spent much of the afternoon also sat around the dining table inside playing dice and listening to music.

 

Over night last night we realised the engine was resonating at around 1800 revs causing the table upstairs to vibrate quite a lot. We have tightened up the engine mount screws which had come a bit loose and this appears to have mostly resolved the issue. Something to add to the list of things we need to get serviced when we get to St Lucia.

 

With our passage west the sunset has been getting later and later which is great but the pay off is that the sunrise has also been doing so making that last shift of the night that much more arduous. To realign things  we decided today that we should set our clocks back one our so we are now 2 hours behind London.

 

The depth of the water where we are is over 5,000 metres. We did some rough calculations the other day estimating the rate at which a mug dropped over the side of the boat might fall and how long it would take for the mug to reach the sea bed. We calculated it would take over two hours to reach the bottom. When you realise you have 5km of water underneath you it is a little unnerving. Earlier today I also had a fleeting moment where I realised, again, what I was doing and where I was and for a very brief moment my stomach turned and my heart jumped a little bit into my throat. I decided the only thing to do was to take the final two bananas, which once were finally ripe really gave up quite quickly, and use them to make banana muffins which turned out pretty nice. We had them with a cup of tea wihlst taking shelter from the rain.

 

Apart from being a bit discombobulating the day has been good all in all. Andy made some bread for the first time which despite not rising very much turned out great and we made garlic bread with it for tonight's dinner. Despite the weather it's been nice to mix things up a bit. I spent a few hours this afternoon playing around with garage band on the ipad wriitng some music to go with the lyrics I penned yesterday for my country and western debut in Nashville next year!

 

We have dropped back a bit in the pack but we are still doing ok and we are pleased with our progress. Our course is now almost exactly due west - slightly north of that having dropped down below St Lucia over the last few days. We are still hopeful we will arrive a week Saturday but it depends on how light the winds are in a few days when they are forecast to drop.

 

Today's milestone was ticking over the 1500 mile marker early this morning. We are also now just under 1500 miles away from St Lucia but we should make, we hope, good time over the coming week.