Sunday 21^th May 2023

North Atlantic Ocean 37^o 38.9N 10^o 56.0W 

Blog by David  (Time Zone: BST -1)

We are approaching the Portuguese Coast. About 60 miles distant.  We are sailing at about 7 kts, wind on the beam.  The air is warmer and drier than it was. 

There’s not much going on  – the wind began to abate around 15.00 and there is now about 12kts from the North, and we are making about 6.5-7.0 knots under sail.  All is well on board. In the circumstances, it’s not surprising that one’s mind wanders as you try to occupy yourself. Indeed, earlier, Terry was driven  to making paper aeroplanes to see  whether the wind and boat speed would generate any lift and to see how far they’d go. 

Well, the answer was that they did not:

1                       Generate lift  nor

2                       Go far – ditching into the sea within a few feet of the boat.

Bimini support

For reasons I won’t go into, we left the bimini (the canvas sun shade over the cockpit upon which we have solar panels) erected for this passage,   If I had understood, before we set off,  that we would actually be sailing upwind in 30+kts of wind then we would probably/ideally have dismantled it – but I didn’t  - and so we didn’t.

When the penny ultimately dropped, we were 400+ miles from land, with a structure that probably would not withstand perhaps 40kts gusts (inc. our boat speed) we decided action was required. We reinforced the structure on the windward side with a bracing line.  The black rope in this photo,  led through blocks on the side deck,  provided transverse support to  three points on the bimini

Bimini support

Heath Robinson, perhaps, but it worked: the bimini survived unscathed.  Quite pleased with it really!!

The one that didn’t get away

We have fished from time to time. Well, we have trailed a lure, anyway.  Early on out from BVI we hooked a “Big One”, quite clearly a large fish judging by the weight on the line but sadly – inevitably, really – it ‘Got off the Hook’.  But then …. We landed the BIGGEST blue marlin we have ever caught – Way Hey!!!   

It might have been a swordfish – but a bill fish definitely!

Not exactly the biggest fish we landed – but certainly the biggest Billfish!