Thursday 3rd Dec
Gwylan
Charles Manby
Thu 3 Dec 2009 19:47
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Well a poor Wednesday continued into Thursday in
sailing terms and I suspect it's a bit of a light winds procession to the finish
from here. We got stuck in a low that had come further south than we had
thought, so the day's total is only about 140nm. A Lady only 30nm to the
south has got away and Satori has caught up, so it looks as though we won't beat
either of them to the finish unless our wind changes relatively a
lot.
But there was sailing variety last night.
From parasailor to beating in exactly the same direction in 15 minutes!
Between 8.30pm and 2am today we made 29nm. We were in the middle of a ring
of rain-clouds, it was very wet but no wind at all. Could see the clouds
on the radar and knew when we would get out when we finally got there.
Plenty of action around us, but too much calm in the middle.
Today has been very sunny, we have been for a swim
in 5000m water which was 30 degrees. Wind has been under 10 knots almost all
day, speed has been 6 knots so tomorrow won't be great either. We have seen
sails astern and to port all day but relative positions haven't changed
much.
The fishing rod which has been much derided and
which I purchased in Lanzarote has been put to good use, and we caught a 3-4kg
bluefin tuna. My only regret is that it was Tom's patented rubber band to
keep the line away from the dinghy rather than the whizzing of highly strung
line from the titanium wotsit that alerted us to the fact that there was a fish
on the luminous green line. However the tuna and the Wahoo made for great
Sashimi at lunch today. In terms of ROI on the rod we are nearly at
payback with one fish!
Little needed fixing so it's been books, fishing
and swimming. The sails haven't needed much trimming. Swimming was very
good fun, with Gwylan making 2 knots under no sails with just the
current.
With hindsight we should have headed south about 3
days ago when we stayed on starboard gybe and only gybed in the morning.
Oh well...
Spirits high, suntans good. We might
even watch a DVD.
Hi Pippa, Alex and Mike!
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