31st January 2016: Land Ho!
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Sun 31 Jan 2016 16:28
Having had a dearth of bird life or sea mammals, last night brought evidence of teeming underwater life. As Fiona was heading off watch the water began to glow underneath with flashes of greenish light like press photographers chasing a disgraced celeb. Darwin mentions this in the "Voyage of the Beagle", along the lines of 'the phenomenal amount of light small animalcules can emit underwater'! It was eerie, like something from a sci-fi movie, coupled with the sound effect of the rope generator whirring like Dr. Who's Tardis, and the huge starry sky overhead. James also was joined in the cockpit by flying fish of varying sizes. They are quite a considerable size, perhaps the same as a good-sized pilchard and have quite hard heads! Miles Smeaton (who with his wife Beryl explored all over the world in their small boat), wrote that their live-aboard Siamese cat used to lie in wait for them on deck at night and then eat them all (Elisabeth, I think Isis would be mesmerised, but having no cat aboard we put them over the side this morning). Looking at the water a few times this morning we saw schools of them, like a flock of small land birds, gliding a surprisingly long way.
James also located a small leak into the electrical panel (navtex, Radio's, GPS etc) and located the source at around 3:30 am this morning. The hot weather seems to have dried out some of the mastic seals round the bolts holding the yankee traveller track to the deck. We will have to take out the leaking bolts and re-seat once in port, which involves dismantling much of the headlining and cupboards.
Early in the evening we put in a second reef in the main, but by dawn we had shaken both out and were broad reaching in about F5 and with reduced seas. This idyllic sailing lasted until about 2pm when it dropped further, to only F 2 now, and so we are motoring the last 15 miles or so. As we are writing this, the islands are appearing out of the haze ahead and the courtesy flag is hoisted. Pictures will follow once we have anchored or made safe in Mindelo.