Dear Family and Friends,

 

13th December 2014

 

Well here we are bobbing along, light winds again, sails are up and down, the engine on and off depending on whether we can make good progress under sail. We are achieving 140 miles per day at the moment with an average speed of around 5.9-6 knots which is good.

 

Last night on watch from 1am, I can confirm its officially warm, I was in shorts! Something of a light show again, stars, a bright full moon and a lightening show off to our NW. This was fortunately some way off unlike the 3rd day of the storm when lightening was hitting the water close by us and we were being blown along at 6 kts under bare poles. Quite frightening then.

 

You can tell the news is a bit limited I am writing about showers! But then until you have had one on a moving boat with limited water resources, you have probably not given it a second thought! The wonders of the 3 minute shower goes something like this, have everything strategically placed, switch on shower, wet all over, turn off water, 30 secs, apply soap/shampoo, turn shower back on, rinse hair and any remaining soap, turn off, 2.5 minutes, job down. So when we are land based, using marina facilities with unlimited hot water it is a real treat and downright disappointing if you find only cold water in a 10 second bursts.

 

We have confirmed sightings of flying fish, those evolutionary staging posts to Darwin knows what! Most odd, they fly on adapted fins for several feet, flashes of silver skimming above the waves. They have been known to strand themselves on boats, none on Jenny this trip!

 

And lastly we are running a comparison of bread mixes, (too much time on our hands I hear you say!) So far we have tried the Sundried Tomato which was good, 8/10, the cheese and onion, less so, got the onion and herb flavours but the cheese was only a hint 6/10, (shame have more of those), and today granary with mixed seeds, another 6/10, nice taste but heavy texture and poor rising, oh well back to the drawing board with that mix.

 

As I write we have 1576 miles to go, still under half way, I am planning a celebratory beer at 1200m!

 

All our best,

Lynne, Alan and James