Sunrise, rainbow, swimming - and we're half way there!

Tomogilvie
Mon 30 Nov 2015 19:09

Goodbye November!  It seems odd thinking about the calendar out here.  Time just flows out here and it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s day or night, let alone dates or months.  

 

I was on watch as the sun rose this morning.  Beautiful sunrise - and a rather threatening rain cloud catching us up from behind.  This time the iPhone was able to capture it.  The first in the sequence was taken at 0837 and the last by 0857.  By the time the rain cloud caught us up it had run out of steam. No wind and no rain.

 

We celebrated a big milestone today; passing the half-way mark.  Only 1400 nm to go!  And we had a fantastic rainbow to congratulate us. I say it was just for us because there was no rain. I’m not sure what the explanation is for a rainbow in a clear sky so it must have been just for us.  There’s certainly nobody else around to see it.  It did photograph rather well though.

 

As you can see from the pics, there’s still no wind.  We had two weather forecasts this morning, one says wind will arrive Wednesday, the other says tomorrow.  We’ll take the second one, but for today it’s another day on engine.  

 

And as it’s so hot and still, I couldn’t resist taking a mid-Atlantic dip this afternoon.  Feeling a little exposed I jumped off the back of the boat into 3 miles deep clear blue, blue ocean.  It’s 24 degrees in the water, just like a warm swimming pool. Difficult to relax though, given the possibility of teeth coming up from the depths.  We’ve often played “shark-bait” off the back of Laural in the Solent, or hire boats in the Med, but out here the term feels a little more salutary.  I didn’t stay in long.

 

Celebrating the half-way mark with steak and chips for supper tonight!

 

 

 

Hi Grace - No problem getting exercise on board!  The boat’s rocking the whole time, so we get enough exercise just moving about - just standing still in fact.  Even the last few days when it’s been relatively calm the boat regularly rocks from side to side.  When it’s rough we get the pitching forwards and backwards as well. But we have all adjusted to it now and it feels quite normal. It’s actually quite nice being rocked in bed!  Sophie tells me that the last time she was on a long sea crossing, she got land-sick when she got off the boat.  Not looking forward to that!  

 

F&H - I hope you enjoyed your time at Dartmouth Naval College.  It’s quite a place isn’t it?  Did you get to have breakfast in the dining hall?  

 

Hi Ann and Alan.  Glad to hear you’ve arrived safely.  Do send the space station times Ann if you can find them.  I’ll keep a look-out for it.  There have been quite a few meteorites, but the moon’s s bright you can only really see the stars for the short period before it rises.  If you need position info, we’re at Latitude  20 deg 53 min N and Longitude 037 deg 32 min W.

 

Lots of love to all.

 

Tom

 

 

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