20,000M of Sailing
Suzie Too - Western Caribbean
David & Suzanne Chappell
Sun 7 Feb 2010 18:52
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As dawn breaks this morning I am on watch, we are
closing the coast of Brazil heading for the pontoons at the Marina Park Hotel in
Fortaleza, with about 15M to run at 0800z and we have just clocked 20,000M of
sailing in our career .We are all looking forward to a bit of R&R,
I know it sounds stupid but we are bloody knackered - this sailing lark is hard
work and then you don't get much sleep - it's so hot and the place is either
noisy like Salvador, or rolly like Fernando, then you have to get up early to
get the rental buggy, go swimming, snorkelling, diving, walking, provisioning -
it's endless - so a few days of bugger all are going to be very
welcome.
We had a great sail yesterday and overtook at least
8 boats that we saw (never sure if it's polite to wave or if it just pisses
them off even more), plus I imagine others that were over the horizon, so
looking forward to see how we have done. The new pole is great and this morning
another trick I have learnt, from Havanita, is to pull the stay sail out to
goose wing with it so that it funnels the air off the main into the genoa
for a double whammy and an extra knot.
Quite a busy night for Suzanne with cargo ships,
fishing boats and a Brazilian Navy Vessel that I spoke with who couldn't believe
he had 24 unidentified radar targets heading towards him - probably thought we
were an invasion force. Anyway he was really helpful and relayed to several
cargo vessels that we were in the area, but it seems the commercial radars pick
us all up very well
So another medium hop with 2 nights at sea, 316M in
46 hours and I would think that was probably the third fastest behind
Afircan Seawing and Havanita, so another good result
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