The Skye Blue Penultimate Countdown
Skye Blue sailing
Stephen and Malene
Fri 9 Dec 2022 12:56
|
Hi all,
So hopefully this will be our second last post.
It's been a challenging few days in many
ways...
-Conversation is running dry - in fact we recently had a
30 minute conversation about nail clipper design, something about a
'self-retaining-storage-compartment` to prevent loose nails landing on
deck.
-Our route to the finish line has been less than
straight through necessity - due to lack of wind. But it did lead this writer to
wonder when the lower case letter 'h' started to appear as a trail on the chart
plotter, was the skipper trying to spell out the word 'help'?!? But I've been
reliably informed this is more the 'mark of Zorro´ with all the tacking and
gybing required - zigging and zagging our way home.
-The constant anticipation of squalls bringing variable
winds and rain and the often repeated actions of - rain jacket on / rain jacket
off and deck cushions out / deck cushions away. Rinse and repeat if you
will.
-Some light relief had been had in weird and wonderful
world of boat inventions. We marvelled at the 'deck-shower-o-matic 2000', which
involved the perforation of an empty water bottle attached to a length of rope
to aid with sea water dispensing. We also, after 14 days of non-use appreciated
the rudimentary wooden step made pre-departure for the helm deck, which
counters the lean required when the boat is at a 30 degrees to the water,
sailing upwind. Note all such inventions are copyrighted by the Skye Blue Crew.
But please do get in touch to negotiate royalty payments.
And finally to the ludicrous conversation (clearly
delirium has set in) amongst a section of the crew about the possibility of
tying the YellowBrick tracker device (used to monitor our race position) to a
European Swallow and sending it St Lucia bound, in the hope of improving
our recorded finish time. Clearly the tracker´s weight to bird ratio would be
all wrong. But to reference Monty Python and the Holy Grai - we'd clearly
need to find an African Swallow to assist in such a devilish
scheme.
Ok, better get back to the high brow and intellectually
stimulating debates on board. Until next time and our much anticipated final
day.
Your Skye Blue Crew
Ross
PS. Actually the sailing the last day or so has been
great. Said Shipwright Ross now takes everything Skipper tells him about
"unusual for an Atlantic crossing" as "usual for an Atlantic crossing". Have
enjoyed sailing close hauled for the last few days!
13:56.0729N 59:43.6655W |