Officially in the tropics

ChilliOyster
Dave & Becky Werrett
Thu 27 Nov 2008 18:17
 

Position: 20:20.205N 21:54.732W

November 27th 
 


Well still going well,  particularily Molly who is really in the swing of things now. We were all setting up our fishing tackle yesterday when she trotted into the middle of the throng and left four very well formed calling cards! As Sam was down wind he got the brunt of the smell. She then performed again in the midlle of the night on the rug outside india's cabin, unfortunatley Dave trod in it jusy before a big swell knocked the boat sideways and he fell into the loo - smearing it everywhere, quite a bit of clearing up was required and the rug was ceremoniously given a burial at sea mid morning! Now we 've finally got her to go -the next challenge is teaching her that she hasn't got carte blanche to do it anywhere! Ideas on a postcard...!

The highlight of the day today was catching our first first fish, a small but very adequate Dorado, these are very good eating and Becky cooked it for lunch with a marvelous potato salad (potatoes cokked in sea water!). Jordan was besides himself! No dolphins or whales today - but I don't think anything can compete with the show we had on day 2 - I hope you've managed to log onto the various websites to see the photos!

Good sailing day today. We have been trolling along at about 5.5 to 6.5knts, despite our bravado we had to bring the cruising chute down at 9pm last night (we had hoped to leave it up all night) - it was a great team effort and went very smoothly, we then spent the night sailing, a bit rolly polly but fairly comfortable. Becky & I struggled to sleep in our cabin because of the noise of the hydraulic autohelm - with out the engine to mask it was like sleeping atop a wailing banshee. Today we have made good progress by goosewinging - achieved by polling out our genoa and tying the main back with a preventer. We ewill hopefully hold this course and sail all night.
 
We have now down 606miles and if we stick to the course we have plotted we still have 2300 to go, the problem is you have to go south, almost to Cape Verdes before you will pick up the trade winds and turn west to make the crossing. We are averaing about 145 a day - but we have had several days with very little wind - so we are hoping to increase that average to around 160 once we pick up the trades.

I have had a bit of man flu the last couple of days, sneezing coughing the full works but I will survive, I remember at one of the briefings in Las Palmas a guy started talking to me about the crossing, he had a cold and as he spoke I could feel him breathing on me! I guess he gave me this bug. Haven't had a cold for so long! And now I seem to have given it to the rest of the crew!