A fast first day
Simanderal
Michael Hughes and Ger White
Thu 4 Mar 2010 17:37
|
We set off around noon yesterday, and have covered
160 miles in the first 24 hours. A couple of hours of pleasant sailing, followed
by about 3 hours of motoring with no wind. However around 1700 the wind piped up
and we sailed from then till now with the cruising chute up and now the mainsail
on a preventer as well.
Quite an exciting night with the chute up--and not
a lot of sleep--there never is on first day of passage--the wind rising to 20
knots plus up the chuff--but with us doing 8 knots or so, I figured there was
only 12/14 knots over the sail and she carried it well. So a fast
start.
We were also entertained by numerous manta rays
doing tremendous acrobatics, leaping out of the water, doing somersaults--one
even managed a triple somersault before hitting the water again--I didn't know
rays did that--dozens of them--awesome!! And an hour after we'd passed that area
we were joined by dolphins for 20 minutes. But we caught no
fish.
So on we go sailing at 6.5 knots in the sunshine
and moderate seas. We'll keep the sails up as long as we can, but I know we'll
reach the doldrums in the next 30 hours, and then we'll have to
motor.
And outside, I know what the boy who stood on the
burning deck felt--sore feet.
|