Into week three

Lady Stardust Faro-Portugal to Barcelona - 2010
Paul Collister
Tue 12 Dec 2006 23:40
We spent some time yesterday cleaning the fridge out - a task we'd been putting off due to the excessive rolling.  Some milk had spilt a few days ago and it had been smelling bad, so once the sea became calmer we got to work taking everything out, washing it all thoroughly and mopping up the gunge in the bottom - not a pleasant chore on a baking hot day.  The other half (or more like three quarters by the size of it) of Paul's fish was taken out and prepared for dinner - it was so big it took almost an hour to cook!  I had a veggie burger because we bought so many and have to use them before they go off so Paul's been having them for breakfast now that all the bacon has gone.
We were beset by problems during the night - the details of which are in Paul's entry - and our watch system went haywire because Paul needed to sort things out that I couldn't.  When I heard all that had broken at five this morning I thought we would have to hand steer the rest of the 800 miles which would have been pretty hard going with just two of us.  Not long after sunrise, however Paul got up and fixed things one by one.  The worst bit was when he had to dive down to untangle wire on the propeller.  Attached to a blue rope, donning goggles, snorkel and armed with a knife, he told me to pull on the blue rope if I saw sharks in the water!  I also feared that the bobbing boat would knock him out. Then he came back up, declared the job done and told me I should join him in the water because it was lovely.  Not long after this a school of dolphins appeared and put on a fantastic show - leaping and twisting high in the air.  Paul got some great shots on camera (see below) and if they had been a bit earlier he would have been swimming with them (I'd have been tugging on the rope if I'd spotted fins in the water though!).
It's very hot today so we've put a canopy up to block the sun and have made use of a spray bottle filled with water to cool off.  Spent a pleasant hour listening to Bizet's Carmen and watching more dolphins leaping in the distance.
So all is ship-shape again on the baba and the only drawback is that we lost a bit of time so may arrive next Tuesday now instead of Sunday.
Bye for now,
Kathy