49:15.6N 09:00.1W Miles to Pwllheli 278
Ellatrout3
Fri 15 Aug 2014 17:24
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The Iridium signal continues to be poor. The main problem
is the shortness of time the good signal holds before it declines, so we
are reducing the area of our weather forecast requests so that it is a smaller
file to transmit. We hope our emails and blog are getting through,
incoming emails seem to be ariving ok.
Patch saw his dolphins today, he has been calling them
moreor less all the way from Terceira and today they turned up to give him a
show. They kept coming and going, racing round the boat then going off
again only to return. Half way through a big fish turned up, bigger than
the dolphins and definitely a fish. Upright tail and dorsal fin. We
thought the dolphins were mobbing it and it was probably a predator of some
kind. There was a lot of talk about sharks and 'Jaws' but it could easily
have been a shark.we saw it several times before it gave up and
left.
It's not far now, we are just about level with Lands End
at the time of writing, 4pm. If the wind keeps up and goes west as predicted we
could be in early Monday morning but we will have to wait and see what the wind
gods bring us. We are all desparate for a shower and hope Pwllheli Marina
has got the water hot!!! I'm sure we can count on Wil and his
team.
It was interesting that the dolphins appeared as we
crossed the edge of the continental shelf. We presumed they
were feeding on fish that live off the upwelling nutriants available
here. It is the same place we saw the Finn whales in 2012.
It has been a beautiful sunny day with lots of
wind and the odds of not getting soaked sitting in the sun in the cockpit
were good. The skipper had trouble with the crew sleeping in the sun and
had to get his 'starter'out. Whoops one has just come aboard and they are
both soaked. Oh! what shame chuckles the skipper.
Love Patch, Sarah and
Poppa/Dad/Roger
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