It’s an uncomfortable night with lots of crashing and lurching around and I sleep fitfully, constantly woken by the noise as I am unable to use the ear plugs. When the morning eventually comes and the sky begins to lighten, I can see that there has been a steady drizzle for some time and looking out into the gloom it is a total, uniform grey. Lovely, Like being in the English Channel but with no other boats.
I eat my porridge (yes, this type of grey needs porridge), kick my Ugg slippers off and get into bed to catch up on my sleep. Funnily enough I always get off to sleep much better in the mornings than I do in the evenings, probably because I don’t try as hard.
When I wake up it’s 11 am but I lie there until noon as it’s more comfortable than lying on the sofa. At least there is some variation in the sky now, shades of grey with some patches so thin there is a hint of blue behind and a watery sun. By late afternoon there are patches of blue but the wind makes it feel chilly and I have no desire to sit outside on the damp, salty cushions. The sea is a lot calmer too and the wind is now around 15 knots, half the speed it was a few days ago. Mind you it’s still too bumpy to put nail polish on, as I find out when I try. I give up with my bright pink for now and settle for just the base coat. At lease you can’t see the splodges of that all over my toes!
Mike notices that the furler reefing that he and Sean ‘fixed’ seems to have slipped again and when he goes out to ‘fix’ it , I stand at the helm and watch in case he falls overboard and I have to turn the boat around. Who are we kidding? If I got the boat turned around I would probably end up running him over!
He notices that one of the anchor button covers is missing. These are flip top covers and it has obviously been lifted up by the genoa sheet catching on it at some time during the passage and has been flung overboard. Glancing up at the main sail he sees something sitting in the sail bag, and realises that it’s the missing cover. What are the chances of that?
All during the afternoon we have been surrounded by small sea birds diving into the sea after fish. Just before sunset, their numbers seem to multiply and we see fish jumping all around the boat, exciting the birds into a frenzy. Now we are going so much slower it might be worth getting the fishing rod out and trying the new lure that Bob made us.
We put the main up just before it goes dark. We need all the help we can get now there is so much less wind.
Our position is: 19 deg 56 min S, 62 deg 20 min E
Distance so far: 16076 nautical miles
No comments:
Post a Comment