21:31.916N 22:55.501W
Tioram 4
Tina & Tony
Thu 26 Nov 2009 12:28
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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
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