19:19.850N 043:48.292W
Whisper
Noel Dilly
Wed 21 Nov 2012 15:04
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"Gulliver - 21st November"
Our course may seem a little irregular over the
past two days. Our yacht salesman's day developed into a windless night which
kept the crew active in deploying more sail, then furling sails and starting the
engine, only to unfurl them once again once the wind came back this time from
another direction. All these activities takes time in the dark and needs
associated caution with the clipping on and off of safety lines when working on
the foredeck. Yesterdays winds were variable and various rigs and points of sail
were tried to achieve maximum speed. Despite everybody's efforts and
various ideas of which sails to use etc, we only averaged 90 miles per day,
which unfortunately is much slower then our previous average of 125 miles and
was not always in the right direction, but that is sailing.
We were astounded yesterday to be circled by a
seagull, which eventually landed on our coach roof. He was a juvenile, so
was not easily identifiable. He stayed with us for a while then jumped off
into the water and we left him bobbing there as we sailed away. Before
long he would catch us up again, circle Whisper and practice another landing,
which he kept doing from the windward side of the boat so that he
had to come in backwards! We started awarding him points as he
gradually improved. We think that he was either a young European
Herring Gull or an American Ring Billed Gull but either way he was too far out
at sea and was clearly exhausted, land is about 1000 miles away in either
direction. Named Gulliver, he rode with us on and off all afternoon
finally settling down on the coach roof for the night but sadly at some
point jumped ship again. I had hoped that he would catch us up as before
once it was daylight, but so far he has not.
Last night was very varied in conditions, Tony had
a good watch, Whisper was on course and it was a warm balmy night. Mick
relieved him at 2am and was told that he did not need a coat.
Ten minutes later it was pouring with rain and Mick was soaked, by the time I
came up at 5am we had 27 knots of wind and only the main up with a single reef,
which we had put in as a cautionary measure before dusk. The headsail had been
furled away as it had been poled out for the earlier gentle wind and needed the
pole removed in order to use the headsail safely, but with the amount of wind we
had the main was sufficient until daylight. Dressed in full fowlies I took
over and within 30 minutes we were becalmed with sails flapping. Three of
us were then occupied in removing the pole from the headsail so that it could be
redeployed. The wind was so flukey that it took some time to set up Windy
Bill who needs a helping hand in light airs. By the time I finished my
three hour watch we had only progressed 4 miles and not in the right
direction!
Another unusual sighting this morning was a small
Egret. It circled us a couple of times before continuing south.
Photo: "Gulliver"
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