Day 8 - 2/3 of the way to Las Palmas
Clearlake II
Graham van't Hoff
Fri 11 Nov 2011 11:30
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Current position "29:47.50N
16:23.23W". We have had precisely zero wind since leaving Madeira which was
actually a refreshing change from living in a boat at 30 degrees tilt. You can
see from the attached pic quite how flat the water is. Even so, the swell is at
times quite large – perhaps 2 metres – so one often loses sight of everything
but the wave behind, even though there are no ripples on it.
Yesterday was devoted to
jobs and exercises. We practised setting up the spinnaker gear, pulled apart the
lifejackets and checked out the water activation cylinders etc. We then set up
the storm jib – hopefully to spend the rest of the trip in the bag it came in,
but let’s see. There was also the standard tuna fishing which is now becoming
quite predictable – we catch one every hour and a half of active fishing; well,
when I say “we” we have two rods out, Graham’s and Byron’s – Byron’s catches
fish; Graham’s doesn’t. All of which is sort of OK because it means Byron has to
do the gutting/ fileting etc which is a pretty messy/ smelly business so he’s
quite welcome to it(!). Nevertheless, this also set us up for a well cooked
feast last night – seared tuna filets with a sauce of garlic, chillies, onion,
courgette & peppers, accompanied by potato and broccoli, and a glass of
white wine. We had to dig deep to cope with that. This was followed by home-made
flap-jack and then a Bourne Identity DVD. Watch-keeping remains essential, but
not exactly fast moving – we have seen two vessels in 28
hours!
Last night was a wonderful sunset, but also moonrise – as you’ll see in the
attached pic. Just as I was preparing to take a shot of the sunset, James gave
me a shout – on the other side of the boat was a turtle quietly swimming by. I
was lucky enough to be able to snap it on the spot – I never would have been
able to were it but for being in the process of lining up my shot of the
sun!
Today we’re starting to read up all about the next leg – the real Atlantic.
There are various different routes one could choose to take. No doubt we’ll get
lots of advice in Las Palmas, but for now we’re seeing if we can come to one
conclusion as a crew which route we’d have a tendency to take. Broadly speaking
it comes down to taking a shorter route versus taking one with a greater chance
of steady winds and not being becalmed. We’ll
see! |
