Flying Fish Lap Dance....
Mikado
Wed 3 Dec 2008 10:12
Another uneventful day yesterday. Still have very light winds which is
frustrating. One patch of 12-15 knots for about 2 hours last night where we
got Mikado up doing 8-9 knots. But this was preceded by a couple of hours of
motoring and followed by the "crashing and bashing" of the sails in the 4-5
knots of breeze that lasted til dawn. We now have 10-12 knots on the beam
and are sailing nicely along at 5-6 knots.
The winds on this trip have not been what we expected. I feel a bit cheated
that we haven't yet had some roaring trade winds to get us up and going to
get the full "Atlantic sailing experience"...But we still have 1500 NM to
go..
On my watch at 3am this morning I got a shock when a flying fish landed
straight into my lap whilst sitting at the helm ... You also get the odd one
flying into the hull. Funny looking things...a cross between a big March Fly
and a fish. During the day you often see a few schools (or is that
squadrons?) of them zooming over the sea; a bit like Kamikaze aircraft.
A few domestic chores today...will get the boys to help me give the cabins a
good clean. Not sure where all the dust comes from out here. Belly suggests
it is "dried human skin"....YUK. Anyway, I'll get the gear out (vacumn
cleaner, duster, polishing cloths etc...) and get her ship-shape again.
(Maybe we can enter her against Sophistikate in the pretty yacht
competition??...will have to disguise her as an Oyster though??) The decks
got a good wash down yesterday after we cleaned the big Wahoo....you can't
avoid getting a bit of "blood and guts" splattered about the place as they
come on board and get cleaned. But the effort was rewarded with a beautiful
Thai fish curry with Jasmine rice last night....
Current position 17:01.04N 34:47.91W at 1000 UTC 3/12/08
Cheers
Ian