The crew speaks...

Yacht Ariel
Henry Adams
Tue 23 Oct 2007 16:35
Dear All,
 
Henry and I have decided that, for the time being at least, we will compose individual entries to the web diary to ensure a breadth of writing talent, interest and detail, with me providing the first two and Henry the last, which will, hopefully, at least interest some of the people some of the time.
 
We find ourselves, as, doubtless, Henry has already informed you, in the beautiful town square of Porto Santo's only apparent town, rinsing the free wireless internet service (on which we have been working for close to three hours now (while downloading some new music)) drinking glass-bottled coke and eating mega sandwiches, a welcome change from the limited range of gastronomic delight our galley slave can achieve onboard.
 
It only took us four and a bit days sailing under clear brilliant blue skies and blazing sunshine to get here from Lagos on the Portugese mainland, probably a good thing as I'm as pink as an overripe raspberry already, due to some rather cavalier application of suncream yesterday. The crossing was without major incident after the first day or so, which was spent gaining our sealegs and, therefore, feeling most uncomfortable. Henry seemed to feel this worse than I did, his stomach having the strength of a wet paper bag for about 36 hours as he lay around genreally feeling tired and sorry for himself. I must admit that even my soncrete receptivcle of a stomach suffered a bit, but didn't tell Henry that, as it would encourage him to continue moping. I will brush over the breaking of the gooseneck as it was discovered by me and I am not one to blow my own investigative trumpet. I wiil concede, however, that once I had flagged the problem, Henry successfully formed a planm implemented with my ready aid.
 
The original watch system continued to work well, as it did across Biscay, although Henry's idea of four hour watches was fundamentally flawed because one person ended up doing eight hours, while the other had only four. It is not easy staying awake for your second 4-hour shift from 4am as we both proved, dozing contentedly underneath the brilliant stars. Henry's idea of being on watch, incidentally, seems to involve lying on his backs and gazing rather dreamily up at the stars trying to identify constellations. I would find it hard to properly convey the excitement with which he greeted me at the beginning of my 2am watch the other night, when he had successfully identified the different components of Orion the hunter. It's a wonder he ever got to sleep he was so excited.
 
I am very much enjoying the sun after a British summer spent in an office and am trying (already I realise this may be in vain) to catch up with Henry's tan, obtained by three months of Mediterrnean sunshine. This lead, yesterday, to some rather impressive pinkness, connected to a rather cavalier approach to suncream applicaiton for the first time on the trip. It's remarkable how easy it is to ignore when you're on the water. The temperature here remains perfect (in the shade) and we have already taken advantage of some of the 15km of deserted sandy beach.
 
My skipper (ha) has informed that people might not have time to read all this gumph, but then realised that most of you have office jobs and very little to actually do other than let us entertain you and bring a little bit of the sunshine, which we have in spades here, into your daily lives.
 
Have to go now, as am feeling a bit tired after an ice cream and want a sleep before hitting the ba=each again. Lots of love
 
Foshy