Counting Down the Miles

Last night was fairly wild and windy, not terrible but up to 30 knots from just forward of the beam, we reduced to 2 reefs in the genoa, we already had 2 in the main,  and let her rumble at that. It was wet and bouncy too but seems a little better this morning, we’re up to full genoa and 1 reef in the main with the wind now in the South West again but down to 12-14 knots, I probably should pole the genoa out to starboard but am enjoying not rolling around like a mad thing for a bit. We covered 144 miles yesterday with 140 of them being towards Horta, we’ve only 525 miles left to run at the moment.

Yesterday was really nice for a change, it wasn’t too windy or rummelly and we spent the day in the cockpit chatting and reading, the kind of day one hopes for on voyages but often come only occasionally. Wildlife was disappointing, a few tiny flying fish in the scuppers, a tern and nothing much else. There was a ship on the AIS but he never came closer than 14 miles or appeared above the horizon.

I believe, thanks Graham, that Longbow has now left the Caribbean and is following us, it’ll be interesting to hear what kind of a crossing they have and whether waiting for over a week was beneficial.

Patrick is counting off the miles assiduously, we’ve gone through 3/4 way now, the next milestone being 80% with 460 to run, probably tomorrow, I’m not sure if he’ll go for 7/8ths or 90 % after that, it’s something he does when running marathons to keep his mind off the pain.

I’m trying to re instate a couple of strong points in the galley to make falling when on the port tack harder and less dangerous, the idea being to have a strap across to lean against or fall into. I’ve managed to get half of it done but the half on the engine side is proving more difficult as I can’t find the bolts when they arrive on the engine side - they are behind two layers of insulation and I really need to pull some of it off to get at it but this is more involved than one would hope for when t sea and moving about I think I’ll mull it over for a bit, I may come up with an alternative place to put the eye that is more accessible. I thought I’d found the correct eye to put there but it doesn’t match the previous holes anyway although two of the holes (out of 4) do line up.

Full english breakfast this morning to celebrate Sunday although it turns out, along with mash, peas, celery, etc that Patrick doesn’t like beans.

Well done Sarah for getting your instructor rating!

Slainte

Jock, Patrick and Yemaya.