Squeezing time
Fleck
Sat 28 Jun 2014 13:55
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Saturday, 28th June, 2014
Position 38:46.7N 35:34.3W
I don't ever get to see them, but those little
flags on the Mailasail webdiary map should be getting close to Flores by now.
We've been sailing again for 30 hours now, just managing at times to creep along
and keep the sails filled and quiet, and at other times making comfortable
headway. If we have to motor from here, then there is plenty of fuel. Odd last
night, I was gybing the rig, kneeling in the bow, and I was sure that I
could hear a diesel engine thumping along. But no lights anywhere, nothing on
the AIS, a mystery. Perhaps a trawler, thinking as I often do, what is the point
of setting lights in this wilderness? But I do, and I hope that he might
have seen mine! Perhaps after all it was just an odd vibration from the
rig: you get them at different windspeeds; and have I told you about
the voices that I hear.....
Discovered in my almanac that the Azores are on
their own summer time, and just an hour different from BST. So yesterday I
moved the ships clock forwards two hours in anticipation of my arrival: this has
resulted in a slightly odd feeling as I juggle
how hungry I feel and how tired I feel with what the clock says. Moreover, I've
only got to advance the clock by one more hour now to be back where I
started, 8 years ago. Now, each time I move the clock forward one hour, say from
6pm to 7pm, that's a happy hour that I've missed out on. So have I now
experienced 24hrs less that those of you at home? At least they won't have
all been happy hours! I seem to remember that in 'Round the World in 80 days'
the crew found themselve an extra day at the end, I guess they chose to go the
other way.
The 'Oakies' have reached California, and are being
hounded from place to place by the Capitalists and their sheriffs. I think
Steinbeck gets a little polarised in his views, but as a landowner myself, I
would say that, wouldn't I Mandy. Anyway it continues to be powerful absorbing
stuff, and so relevant to today's Europe: even more compulsory reading for our
children, or maybe cut down a bit on Jane Austin?
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