17:39N 27:04W Richs' near death experience.
Tranquilizer
Sail Ionian
Sun 28 Nov 2010 17:27
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After the last few days of the virtually continuous
drone of th engine due to the near non existence of wind today brings a whole
new world. This is a world of howling,sploshing and writhing , and that's just
from skipper,Rich. On day seven ( yes it has been a week since we set of now)
our world is now one of 30 to 45 degrees of heel which makes life a little more
interesting to say the least! Lee has taken to wearing his coffee now and is
asked " one cushion or two" as he splashes it around the cabin. On deck he
fares no better as he's found that tea injested through the skin doesn't burn
the lips quite so much and also saves on the laundry.
We've had lots of visitors today starting with
Richs' flying fish which whizzed past his cheek in the early hours " at about a
thousand knots " We took this as another stretching of the truth because, as we
all know , flying fish are limited to 80 knots. It has seemed to have had
an adverse effect on him as whenever we now see flying fish and he's on the helm
he sets off in their direction barking like a street dog after a cat. Our next
visit was from a very large pod of dolphin ( 50 to 60 of them ) which stayed
with us for quite a while and allowed us to get some great video footage of them
leaping from the water . Rich desisted from following them on this occasion.
Lunch was served at the appropriate time and angle (45 degrees ) by Robin
and Ninky who have learned very quickly how to stand on oned leg whilst holding
tea and cleaning up after themselves at the same time.See todays blog pictures
for the digestion aiding angles. On a more important note we've had to change to
the forward starboard heads as at this angle of heel we can't get any water
through the system as the inlet valves are way above the water.
Since lunch we've had a visit from another pod of
larger dolphins which seem to be chasing the flying fish ( yes they could be
related to Rich ) and who gave us a spectacular display of exploding from the
water vertically at high speed and then crashing back in in an enormouse
splash.
We've had the boat on auto helm for most of the day
and Rich has shown Neil and Robin a great gizmo on the system that keeps the
boat 40 degrees off the wind just by pressing two buttons. We've had to reef
down twice so far and at times the auto helm can't cope and has to be coaxed
back into service but hopefully these conditions are due to change for the
better around midnight tonight but ,as yet, we're not entirely sure what's in
store for us next.
Since setting off exactly a week ago we've managed
to do 988 nm ,not always in the right direction , but seem to be getting the
hang of this sailing lark now.
We look forward to this evenings meal and wonder if
Lee will find any other way of taking food and drink.
Neil
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