Arabian Sea - Day 7
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Wed 23 Feb 2011 11:27
18:02.75N 56:43.21E
Wednesday 23rd February
Would you believe it, we managed to turn the
engine off for around an hour yesterday! Silence is golden! We needed to slow
down so as not to approach a risk area around dusk, so we tootled along at 3
knots until we fell behind and since then we've been back on the runway with the
Boeing 747. Oh no, I tell a lie, we did turn it off for 5 minutes in the night
as we suddenly found ourselves running in between two floats, which means only
one thing, a fishing net! Thankfully we made it to the other side without
getting tangled up, but for a moment with 7 boats running straight over the net
we were a bit worried that we'd have a repeat performance from the night before
when we untangled Natibou. We are now a group of 7 boats because Jacabel has
moved from the group that we rescued to get to Salalah quicker because Jacque
needs to see a dentist pretty quickly and we travel faster than the others.
We had a pretty awful night, as around 20:30
we received the devastating news about the hostages aboard the yacht Quest that
was hijacked last Friday. Quest joined the rally in Phuket so we were just
getting to know Scott and Jean, but they also had two crew members aboard,
Phyllis and Bob. Phyllis has been with the rally since Gibraltar, on a
number of different yachts, and Bob joined in the Marquesas, so we knew them
very well. They were both living the dream, having already circumnavigated once
before with the previous Blue Water Rally. We are deeply saddened by the
news and our thoughts are with their families.
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