|
Paul's Nautical Adventures |
|
The Atlantic At Last the first message from on board the Spirit of Isis. Our current position is slightly north west of the Cape Verde Islands, just a little under half way across the Atlantic with about 1700nm to go. Today is sunny with a slight swell (about 10 ft) and winds of 4/5knots. Making about 10 nm per hour with an average of about 200 nm per day. Our fresh food is slowly being depleted so soon will be sampling the delights of the dried food once again. Velcro and Cliff had their first seawater shower today, causing a slight course diversion as Squirt was driving! Conditions have been fair so far with the Spinnaker flying every day (Cliffs infamous Blue Dacron Nightmare) Currently running about equal first with Minerva however our tracks are slightly different as they are further north and may suffer from the infamous Azores High. Juno and Diana are behind. Juno having suffered slight damage with an accidental gybe, I believe both their Spinnakers are out so are unlikely to catch up. Still on 4 and 6 hour shifts, with watch periods being spent helming, trimming and grinding the Kite or on maintenance. After watch exhaustion sets in so its straight to bed and sleep if you can achieve it with a rolling boat. Dughall is getting to grips with Excel and is producing more and more checklists as time flows on. Showers are limited to one every three days so it offers some excitement when the moment arrives. Velcro managed to get a fishing line out yesterday but caught nothing (Cliff did mention that if he did catch something at 10/12kts then he was not going to pull it on board!) Top speed so far Princess made 22knts on a particularly good wave. Alas I have only managed 16.2knts which to those of you who know me is trivial, but with wind alone and 30 tons of boat, is quite a buzz. Also had our first flying fish land on deck last night, Cliff caught it on the ear so he now knows what its like to be hit by a wet fish. |