21:31.916N 22:55.501W

Tioram 4
Tina & Tony
Thu 26 Nov 2009 12:28
Thursday 26th November, noon.
 
Sorry for no blog yesterday, we all decided to go out for the day. Pat Tony Mike and myself went for a round of golf, whilst the girls endulged in some retail therapy and a session at the spa, and we only realised that no one had done one this morning. We'll make up for it over the next couple of days.
 
Yesterday was a continuation of the conditions we saw on Tuesday, 15-20 knots wind, seas at 2-3m, reefed main and poled out gennie as we headed SSW around 7 knots. The plan was to head southerly to a point just west of the Cape Verdes and then head west, but on the latest weather files came in and we've decided to cut the corner and stay with the current winds. We've already covered 670 miles in that direction and there doesn't appear to be any benefit in adding the extra miles (we're about 390 miles north of the Verdes now) to head south especially as there are now favourable winds to take us in the right direction.
 
Everyone now appears to be back on form after a couple of days of feeling slightly queazy, this was evident at lunch time when all the crew polished off a large helping of bananas and custard, let along dinner when a chicken curry didn't even hit the sides of the bowls! The only thing now would be a full 8 hours of sleep, oh well you can't have everything. 
Both watches were kept busy during the night and rather than just scanning the pitch black horizon, we had plenty of traffic to keep us alert. One of these, a 1000' tanker heading for South America came up from astern, but gave us a wide berth once we'd radioed him. Even at a mile away, it was huge and you wouldn't have wanted to have been any closer with him charging through at 10 knots in the middle of the night.
 
Just to give you all a taster of life on board, normally night watches are extremely tedious and everyone finds it takes a great deal effort to stay awake even with regular supplies of coffee and maltesers (the stash has been found!), especially on the 12-4am watch, so we've come up with some games to keep us going. The early hours of Wednesday brought us Food and Drink of Italy (any ideas for U, as we were stumped by that?), Islands of the World and Farmyard animals (our version allowed ants, earthworms and foxes!).....now you understand how tedious that watch is and the subjects will just get more ludicrous as this trip goes on!! The skies have also been quite clear, so has allowed for our resident Patrick Moores to endulge in a spot of star gazing, it always amazes how clear the constellations are when away from any light pollution as well as the number of shooting stars that we see. We even saw an unexplainable (by us) cosmic phenomenon last night in that the moon was surrounded by a perfect halo of matter that looked like the Milky Way - any ideas, answers on a postcard please!
 
Anyway, almost time to start preparing lunch in time for when the other watch wake up at 2pm...I think you see a common theme to our days, you're either on on deck, sleeping and eating!
 
Love to all at home.
 
Tony, Tina, Pat, Mike, Moira and Al