Fw: Almost,almost, but not quite! 38:32.86N 31:19.67W
Moya
Doug Smith
Mon 4 Jun 2012 17:03
----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Smith
To: Web Diary
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2012 1:14 PM
Subject: Almost,almost, but not quite! 38:32.86N
31:19.67W Hi All,
Sorry, missing for a few days, because of the
bumps, but we are getting excited with position 38:32.86N 31:19.67W on
Sunday 27th May; that gives us just 127 miles to go and we are approaching
Horta at 6.2 knots over the ground!
The strong winds we were experiencing in the last
update have faded and we are back to sunshine and an almost flat sea. Two
of our number, Rick and Frank, wanted to go for a swim so that they could say
they had been swimming mid-Atlantic, but the rest of us were quite happy to just
"hold the towels" - after all, the nearest land was only 5,000 metres away,
beneath their feet. Neither stayed in too long, clearly their thoughts
were on the Whales, Dolphins and possible other Leviathans of the deep that we
had seen earlier and both expressed the change in temperature from that of the
Caribbean in language that should have warmed the water immediately around their
positions. We stopped just long enough for them to complete their dip,
then motored on in the sunshine toward where we hoped land would eventually
appear.
During the day we see "No Ships" which amazes us
all as we know that the Arc Europe fleet of about 200 boats are all heading for
Horta and we know that in this vast Ocean we must all be focusing toward one
point, but at night things change and yachts, like buses, appear in the
blackness, with hazy lights that eventually firm into navigation green and reds
and we hope that when daylight comes there will at last be somebody new we can
talk to. However, when dawn does break, they all vanish - except for one,
who trailed about a mile behind us, until I decided we had to reef again and
turned to windward to pull the canvas in. As we debated, in strong terms,
if the boat was actually being held into the wind by the helmsman with the
headsail blocks lashed Rick and myself with the force of "the cat", the boat
behind, carrying no main, simply rolled another couple of turns into her
diminishing foresail and sailed on by with no change of course or loss of speed.
Oh, the joys of a modern rig! As she vanished over the horizon ahead
of us, we no longer felt the need to chat.
With the exception of the odd blow, I am prepared
to motor more now as I see the end in sight but that too comes with its
problems, last night the engine stopped during the middle watch - of course, my
off-watch, and a filter change was required with luckily no hitches and after
half an hour of rolling silence,we were once again on our
way.
Excitement is building as the miles fall away each
watch, everybody is interested in the chart, and I sense we all are craving for
dry land, a shower and other people to talk to. My thoughts are
turning to the rest of the trip - have we enough time left to carry on
with four of us declaring work committments, and if we do, we need a rest
before setting out again or are we strong enough to carry on without that
short break - this is the next command decision!
Doug.
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