Thursday 24 August 2023, 15:30
The Adventures of Tin Man
Andy Topp & Steve Arnold
Thu 24 Aug 2023 14:34
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32:55.34N
013:7.24W
what three words -
muesli.publishing.delaying
It has been a relatively uneventful 24 hours since Sam's
previous update. My bread, despite the predictions, actually turned out ok if
not slightly pale. This morning i made rolls for the hot dogs we had for lunch
but they turned out a little bit dense. Thankfully there are people on board who
can make good bread so I'll try to hone my skills over the next few months
before the transatlantic. We have also received a bread recipe from Sam's son,
Seb, who is himself a keen baker, so we will be trying that out soon.
Last night I was on the 2am to 6am shift. It was
pretty grim - we are much further south now which means the day v night ratio is
evening out. Further north this graveyard shift had the singular benefit of a
stunning sunrise to finish it off before grabbing some sleep but now we don't
get that - the sun rising sometime around 7-7:30am. There was very little chat
between Will and I as we struggled to stay awake. We are now pretty out of
all the main shipping lanes and are sandwiched between the coast of Africa
traffic heading out the med, some fifty miles to the east, and other traffic to
the west heading down to the Canaries from further north. During those night
shifts you get plenty of time to reflect and two things struck me last night -
one how dark it is. The moon is setting relatively early after sunset which
leaves the majority of the night really dark with just the Milky Way to break up
the black. We are now around 200 miles from Africa (Morocco) just south of
Casablanca, but the distance also means there is no light polution.
The second thing was that we are just constantly moving
save for a couple of quick stops in Spain and Portugal. We are now 1,310 miles
into the journey and have travelled from the south coast of the UK to the
Western Sahara in terms of longitude change. If we had made this journey on land
we would have seen considerable changes in both landscape and architecture but
whenever I look up out of the boat I see the same constant view; endless, deep
blue, rolling sea. Save for a marked improvement in weather compared to the UK,
it's easy to forget where you are when you're on these long passages. This makes
it sound like a view that is boring but to me it is anything but - it is really
liberating to be so isolated and the view, as constant and unchanging as it is,
never stops being anything but beautiful.
In other news, we have had a couple of surprise hitch
hikers over the last two days - both of them mini squids which have been found
slowly sauteeing on the front deck presumably having been washed over by rogue
waves. It must have come as quite a shock to be riding the wave only to find
yourself baking in the sunshine on a boat. Needless to say, neither proved to be
very resilient in the inhospitable environment they found themselves.
320 miles to go!
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