Day 8 - 114nm
Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Sat 27 Dec 2014 13:07
Thankfully the sun is shining and we are doing 6-7 knots so the miles are ticking away. When we reach the next 'way point' which we should do in a couple of hours at present speed we shall have done a 1000 nm. From Gran Canaria. Dan has put these points in on the plotter (see picture) to mark The Great Circle Route to Barbados. So we are progressing. David's comment this morning ' he never imagined we would be doing less than 150nm a day. He compared it with my games of golf - quite often bad scores which don't really much matter in the grand scheme of things but you just wish could be better. Not sure I like the analogy!
Yesterday crew morale was generally a bit low and we felt quite lethargic - whether due to the cloud cover all day, post Christmas Day blues or tiredness we not sure but this morning we are all in a much better frame of mind.
We did cover some miles yesterday but the wind died off around tea time and didn't pick up again until the early hours of this morning when it also changed direction. When this happened the men made a sail change setting up the poled out cruising Shute and small Yankee on the foredeck in the night for the first time - deck light helped considerably. Thankfully the wind has continued so fingers crossed it lasts.
We are ' rockin and a rollin' again but either we have got used to it or the motion is different as we are now able to read. However not sure I shall ever get used to suddenly being flung when trying to wash or have forgotten to hold on. The bruises are appearing!
Alex and the children leave the UK today for the BVI via Washington. They overnight in a hotel and then fly to St Thomas arriving on 28th. Her cousin Sarah and Frank (same age as Merryn) are going to go over from the BVI to meet them in St Thomas and help them back to Tortola.
The men are back checking things today i.e. Why is there a small amount of water in the bilges? Not sure any conclusion has been reached in spite of the checks. ( most probably/hopefully an innocent situation when they find it. ) After Alex sent in our expenditure on the Sat. Phone (it's ok but we don't want to run out though gets reset on 1st Jan) and we did make phone calls to the family on Xmas day we have also been trying to find out where else the £'s are being spent. Dan discovered I still had 'I cloud' on my tablet and it's been trying to download photos! Wrap over the knuckles. He has also been trying to tame David's computer which is trying to update programmes too.
PLEASE keep sending the messages - we really appreciate them but can you make sure that you have deleted any old messages (the conversation history) before sending - all helps.
Great excitement just as I was finishing writing this and before 'Listen With Mother' - Slocum's story we had about 2-3 dozen Dolphins on the bow wave. Just wonderful. Can one ever tire of them? Some quite tiny ones. Next challenge - identification of what type - see blog tomorrow. I have no excuses as Alex put a Whale /dolphin book on the boat.