Saturday 25th June
Whitesatin
Sat 25 Jun 2016 07:40
yesterday afternoon, we marked (note not celebrated) this historical occasion with a typically
British afternoon tea with home made bread buns (thank you Tessa for your
recipe) and jam.
We have continued to be entertained by our friends in the sea. First of all
we saw a blue whale, about 30 m long, quite a distance away, but clearly
blowing water out of his spout and this was then followed by several more similar sightings.
Then yesterday afternoon we have had a much closer encounter with a pod of minky
whales, 6-9 metres long; it was incredibly exciting. Jane and David D were on the dawn watch this morning and saw a whole pod of whales with flippers, about a mile away.
Skipper ordered us to have showers, not because we were very smelly but so
that he could practise using the watermaker. It is a very small shower
cubicle and not easy when the boat is rolling but it is another experience
we can now say we have done.
Unfortunately we had to motor for most of yesterday as again the winds
were lighter than forecast. However, Alan is teaching David A how to take
position readings with his sextant. We also have three daily puzzles (a
Mensa puzzle from a calendar, and a polyword and 3 anagrams to solve which
have been saved from old newspapers). We keep an hourly log of our position
and mark our position on the chart every three hours - it is amazing how the
time flies.
As we have now passed the half way mark across the bay, we allowed ourselves a celebration with
a bottle of champagne at sundown.
We awoke this morning to a perfect downwind, so the Parasailor is up again and it is wonderfully peaceful without the engine.
At 08:00 BST we have 90 miles to go to La Coruna, which will get us in about midnight, but perhaps more significantly we will be going over the Biscay shelf again in about 50 miles (it sort of runs parallel to the French and Spanish coasts all the way round) at about 17:00 BST; the wildlife is more prominent going over the shelf so we are trying to make sure we cross it during daylight.
Au revoir
Vicki x