Friday 1 December 2023
The Adventures of Tin Man
Andy Topp & Steve Arnold
Fri 1 Dec 2023 20:04
14:01.14N
039:07.03W
what three words :
guttering.scavengers.rockets
Normal service has resumed! The sunrise was earlier today on account of the fact that we changed the clocks back an hour, and yesterday's black clouds, high winds, big waves and near constant rain have left, and warm sunny blue skies have been the order of the day. We have made a batch of daquiris ready for captains table cocktail hour later. Having seen no other vessels for days we had a bit of "excitement" over
night when a container ship from Senegal appeared on the radar. At one stage it
was set to pass right by us but they changed their course slightly and we missed
them by about 7 miles - too far for a visual. We almost called them on the radio
to say hi but decided that a 4am chat with two excited ARC sailors was not what
they wanted. We know there are other ARC boats nearby but they are out of range
of our AIS and radio on which we have heard nothing for quite some time.
It is December 1 today so we are officially in the countdown for Christmas.
It definitely doesn't feel like it here - how could it where we are - but Sam
has vowed to make some mince pies (the pastry dough is in the fridge and ready
to go tomorrow) and I've been threatening the rest of the crew with my Christmas
hits playlist for a few days now. I am acutely aware that I need to pick my
moment, as I fear if I go too hard too soon there may be a mutiny and i may not
make it to St Lucia!
I have continued to write some music to go along with my country and
western song, Squall Country, today. I'm pleased with the progress so far but it
isn't ready yet. I'll keep you posted! Jooj thinks we need to shoot the video
for it out here so we need to make some progress in the next few days!
We are trying to fish again today - it's not going well. We had to do some
emergency repairs on the rubber squid the other day because it was ravaged by
the waves. News from another boat we are in touch with is that the fish are now
too big out here and they are simply biting the lures off. One of the fishing
rods on that boat was smashed to pieces, the fish was so big. Thankfully we
don't have rods - our lines are just tied to the back of the boat so at least we
don't have to worry about that.
The wind and rain of the last few days has made the swell particularly big
- we are downwind so the waves hit us from behind lifting the back of the boat
up and surfing us along. Ocassionally they are so big they break over the back
and splash the cockpit. It can be quite disconcerting to sit in the cockpit
looking back and see a wall of sea two or three metres high coming at you but we
are all pretty used to it now.
Tomorrow is mean to be a bit calmer and so is provisionally pencilled in as
our mid point swim day - if the swell is sufficiently reduced to allow for that.
I'm sort of excited to swim in the middle of the Atlantic but I'm also a bit
anxious about it. Maybe I'm secretly hoping we won't be able to so I can save
face! We have discussed the need to have someone with a snorkel looking out for
approaching sharks! That said with the exception of kamikaze flying fish we have
seen very little other life out here but we can't escape the fact that small
fish mean big fish which mean bigger predators! I'm putting it to the back of my
mind for the time being and we will be avoiding Jaws for movie night until after
the swim!
Today we did a food audit and planned out the menu for the next nine days
to hopefully take us beyond our arrival in St Lucia. Provisioning this time has
been absolutely spot on and all being well we will arrive into St Lucia with
only the emergency tinned and dried food left, and possibly a portion of chicken
or two. By planning initially to ensure the fresh food was used we had almost no
waste with the expection of the odd mouldy orange or bendy carrot, and by the
looks of things we won't have to tuck into the emergency Steak and Kidney Frey
Bentos pies in a tin! I'm pretty sure most of the guys would rather eat the
plain rice or just muesli for a few days instead of that. The food this time has
been excellent. It was great on the first leg but this leg we have had a lot of
variety and that has kept things really interesting. Steak night #2 is tomorrow
which I'm really excited about. That said i'm looking forward to going to a nice
restaurant when we get there - even though the food is great preparing it, and
eating it, on what is effectively a rollercoaster, is challenging.
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