Fresh Bread

MILANO BLANCO
James Blackburn
Thu 2 Jul 2009 13:42
02 Jul 20 noon 35:11.50N 62:15.93W
 
Paul:
Got up at 3am to start watch Carlos was on deck and pointed out a fairly nasty weather system to the north which we both watched for a while before Carlos went to bed leaving me alone with the stars and pitch darkness as the moon had set at about 1.30am. At 6am the sun came up and I was joined by a pod of Dolphins who swam with the boat and played around the bow. The morning was fairly calm, I baked some bread with one of Brett's Recipes, the white bread didn't turn out too well but the Chorizo bread was a great success. In the afternoon the wind dropped and the sun came out, we had glorious sunshine and a steady breeze on the stern. We had dinner at 9pm with the sun setting and the moon directly behind us glimmering in our wake. Jamie went to bed at about 10.30 leaving Carlos and I on watch. Everything remained fairly calm for about an hour, then the wind started dropping and we started to see big weather systems moving in on us from the North.We spent the next 3 hours trying to keep the boat sailing as the winds were shifting in almost every direction. There were the most enormous weather systems moving in on us from the North. The first one went all the way down to the sea with a huge amount of rain, lightning and gale force winds inside it. For a while we thought it was going to hit us but it passed behind and we sailed on to dodge 2 more, getting just a bit of rain as they passed close, I went to bed at 3am with the boat ripping along at 7.5 knots on a fine reach, unbelievably on a flat sea. Had a long sleep and got up at about noon for some lunch.