Lack of speed taking its toll
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11:10.000S 127:59.510W We have just had our two slowest days since we left
During supper last night we talked about what we might put in today’s blog – it soon became obvious that we should be honest and tell it how it is. Our lack of speed is beginning to take its toll on crew morale – the actual words used were ‘boredom’, ‘restlessness’ and ‘apathy’.
Although we’ve been at sea for 22 days (including a 10 hour stop in the Galapagos), time has not been difficult to fill, but that is beginning to change. Max even took up baking, briefly, producing some interesting but nonetheless tasty flapjacks. Fortunately we are not yet tired of listening to Blackadder Goes Forth, despite having heard it through 3 times so far. What to do?
The wind has steadily dropped to its current strength of between 7 and 10
knots from the east. We are still
sailing dead down wind, goose-winged, mostly on a port gybe but occasionally on
starboard. We are travelling west
at around 5 knots on a bearing of 255° with a gentle following sea and even
gentler easterly wind. Yesterday we
briefly put our symmetric spinnaker
up, but it gave us very little additional speed, and with winds rising to15kts
(sweet memory!) there were worries
about putting too much strain on it, so down it came
again. Robert is doing a great job of trying to keep up crew morale. He’s just cooked a delicious brunch of bacon and scrambled eggs. Having serviced and repaired several of the lifelines, he is now running a masterclass for the crew in servicing winches. Oh joy!
On a more positive note, sunsets and
sunrises have been delightful, with particularly pleasing yellow/pink/grey
formations on the horizon providing those on the
Finally a big thank you to all our readers for their
feedback – from as far afield as |
