After a night of listening to “Doogie” chundering on (Para Handy fans will recognise the engineering reference in our pet name for the Yanmar), we awoke to a gentle breeze with some promise of sailing. The 0600 watch keeper (moi) set to with the needle and sailor’s palm to stitch up the remaining seams on the main sail, and we finished it off when the others came to for breakfast. A bit more sail tape, some more reinforcing on the luff rope, doing the tricky bit of getting the batten cars back into the mast, then we raised her gently. She seems to have enjoyed her day off, and the pampering that went along with it, and set nicely. We will, however, treat her with care and respect till we reach the Azores.

I am afraid we will not be in the Strictly Come Sewing finals, having failed on the cosmetic grading, so we will have to remember the event fondly, soothing our pride and – more importantly – the severe puncture wounds that we endured from the diabolical sail needles. Ali was muttering about Mrs Barton, her school home economics and sewing teacher, and every now and then we would hear something like “a seamstress does NOT need to tie a knot, Alison” as she came to the end of a piece of whipping thread. Alternatively, she would spit “a lady does NOT lick the end of the thread, Alison”, as she tried to get it through the eye of the needle with the boat lurching around with her secured to the boom and holding on to the sail as it flapped around her head.

By midday, we were up and running. The wind had increased to 10-15 knots from the southern sector (different tack, adjust the bunks or fall out) and we were coursing along at 6 knots, keeping an eagle eye on our newly repaired sail. Please give us more of this!

Lunartics

I was handing over to Lorraine the other night at 2100, talking through the issues and weather, when I caught a glimpse of something heading towards us that had not been there a moment ago (I knew as I had just checked the radar and AIS). I shuddered because it looked like a huge cruise liner and seemed very close. There were decks and it was ablaze with light. In a panic, we turned to stare at it and realised it was the moon which had just come up horizontally wreathed in black diaphanous clouds. As it emerged, it was almost orange and fantastic. You could just imagine it shaking her golden feathers…

Jim tells us that it is at its perigee (he just spelt it for us) now, appearing very large: another to tuck away for the crossword. Lorraine’s reaction to the moon the other night was also interesting: she howled at it!

Appetites Restored

Everyone is enjoying their food, and the queasiness has dissipated. Lorraine is being a little careful of acidic things yet, but still tucking in like a good ‘un. It may be the quality of the provisions, the good ingredients and preparation, the skill of the cooks – Jim today, Lorraine yesterday completing the round – but people are looking forward to their meals.

It might also be attributed to the fact that some were off their food for a couple of days, and as my father would put it in his Scottish way “hunger maks guid kitchen”.

Distance Run and Distance To Go

We do the daily summary at around this time, and are delighted to report that we have just cracked the 500 mile mark, with 1300 still to go unless we have to put some more distance in due to the wind. Chris advises us to stick to the Great Circle Route, which is the most direct to the Azores, but usually does not have enough wind from the right direction in May. This year seems to be a bit different, though, and the systems are quite unusual – no real Azores High yet, and a slow moving depression to the north. He is unsure how the coming days will pan out yet, so we will have to wait for developments.

Spirits high…

Watergaw