DAY 10 HALF WAY

DAY 10 HALF WAY only 1500 nautical miles to go

 

You can see from the title that today is a big day.  We have reached the half way point of our journey ONLY a quick 1500 nautical miles to go.  We have achieved this in 10 days to the hour.  If we can maintain this pace then theoretically it will take 20 days.  We will celebrate today by making popcorn!!!

 

Considering that we are supposed to be in a more predictable weather zone-things are far from this, we have had squalls, frontal weather with drizzle, some wind, no wind and extreme wind in tha past 24 hours.  We have managed to make good progress during this time.  The swell is still quite large but tends to run with us more.

 

A quick deck check confirmed that there is no chafe on the sails and luckily no equipment failures so far.

 

Our most exciting event was a bump in the night.  At around 11pm Ian had gone to bed and there was a a loud thud on the port side of the boat.  Then followed by many more banging sounds over a short period.  My heart sank as I thought something had come loose on deck-this would require Ian to leave the cockpit at night.  The noise continued-suddenly Ian appeared through the hatch.  He said it was probably a fish trying frantically to get off the boat.   We shone the torch along the port side deck-sure enough there was a very big flying fish attempting to clear the toe rail and return to the sea.  It was sad to see.  Ian never goes out of the cockpit at night but we felt so sorry for it that I made him strap on a lifeline to a cockpit safety hook and go out on deck.  The fish struggled frantically at first but was happy when Ian launched it overboard.  Ian and I make terrible fishermen.

 

Apart from that all else is good the sun is shining with a few light fluffy cumulus clouds.  The dry weather gave us an opportunity to wash our tea towels this morning and hang them out on the deck.  The air is now a little sticky-perhaps a thunderstorm is on its way.

 

0 fish