(No.22). "An air of keen anticipation" today
Catou
Paul and Sylvie Tucker
Tue 23 Nov 2010 12:12
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Hurrah! It's shower day - no wonder we are all
full of anticipation and excitement! We have to all shower on the
same day, otherwise we might start to notice each other - but so far
so good. Actually we have lots of water aboard. (Suggested amount is
anywhere between 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 litres/day per person) but we have over 10
litres per day per person. I did wonder if we could each have a
bath with that much !
25:11.00N 18:08.00W
Noon position 25 deg 11.13'N 18 deg
07.86'W Daily run 126 miles. Average speed 5.25 Knots
The other big event of yesterday was Ben's bread making
abilities (Lucinda please note!) Ben's parents-in-law, Nigel and Helen
asked us around for supper a few weeks ago to meet up again with Bruce and Woody
Roscoe. Nigel went as crew in the ARC on Bruce &
Woody's yacht some 10 years ago, so it was a great evening discussing
issues. Woody sent Sylvie her bread-making recipe - and Ben decided
to try it yesterday. Woody - it worked brilliantly! Part of the
procedure to make it rise is put it under a black bucket in the sun - which
worked well. Anyway it was great tasting bread, and Sylvie and I were
really impressed. Only trouble is we still have some sliced bread from Las
Palmas, and we need to finish it off before we start making more
home-made.
Ben and I had to get the big canvas sun awning out
again - since it still wasn't dry after the showery last morning in Las
Palmas. A couple of hours in the wind and sun and we folded it up again
and stowed for the rest of the trip, since we can't use it at sea.
This morning (Tuesday 23rd) we are finally ALONE on the
sea! All yachts have disappeared from view over the horizon. We were
able to see some lights last night, but no yachts at daylight today.
The winds were light yesterday, but we managed to maintain about 5 knots on
average, but during the small hours of this morning the wind
increased slightly, and we have had a noticeable increase in speed since
then. Also the wind has shifted towards the East, so we took the
whisker pole down (which 'goose-wings' out the genoa) and tried on a broad
reach. That slowed us by a knot, so we reverted back to goose-winging with
pole. Yesterday, I forgot to mention that our average speed was 5.1 Knots
for the daily average (which also allowed for the waiting around for the start +
light winds after the start) and we had covered 123 miles in just under 24
hours.
We are still struggling with the Hydrovane
self-steering. We almost had it in action last night, but being close to
gybing, we decided that it was too dangerous to risk and carried on manually
steering, which isn't too much of a hardship and helps to pass the watch.
In the meantime while Ben and I were struggling with the self-steering, Sylvie
produced another fantastic Chilli con Carni for supper.
At lunchtime yesterday we reached our first waypoint and
altered course for the next one about 580 miles further on. The new w/p is to
the NW of the Cape Verde islands, and depending on the next couple of
weather reports, we will decide if we go as far as it or 'cut the corner' and
head straight for St. Lucia before. We are currently further west
than we originally planned. We altered tactics after clearing the
'wind-shadow' of Gran Canaria, and we believe that we are further west than many
of the fleet. We hope that you can all follow the ARC website. If
you haven't yet tried to look at it, go to www.worldcruising.com/arc and click
on 'Fleet review' or Ben says that you can go straight to it by going to www.worldcruising.com/arc/viewer.aspx
'Catou' is number 230 (and our main competition - 'Maymio' ,the other Malo is
no. 177) My sister Ange says that we are to the west of them through they
are a little further south.
Best wishes to you all
Sylvie, Ben and Paul
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