Well in theory this could be my last full day, we’ve 100 miles to run and it’s 0826 on GMT-5 which I’m assured is Cuba time. My ipad however thinks it’s GMT-6 so we’ll have to wait and see.
A good day yesterday, I got a couple of coats of varnish on the spots on the wheel. We were mostly doing 7+ knots and the sun was shining. No whales but a red footed booby- (Well possibly, it may have been a brown one I didn’t see his feet but from the book it looked more like the red footed one. Which almost certainly makes it a Brown one!)
I gybed the genoa in the afternoon and we’ve been on the port tack since with the wind at 18-22 kts yesterday falling overnight. The weather is supposed to be light from here-on-in but we’re actually making 4.5- 5 kts at the moment under sail so I’ve knocked the engine off although had run it for an hour at sunrise for speed as opposed to batteries when the wind died at dawn.
Washing day today, I’ve linen hanging from the flag halyards and along the guard rails and a sheet soaking which has a blood stain from my elbow which is not too enticing. Hopefully it’ll come out as it’s a fitted sheet I made for the aft bunk which is an odd shape and difficult to make with an ordinary sheet.
The Argyll Gang are travelling today and arriving tomorrow, they all met at Edinburgh for champagne last night and are heading out via Madrid today and tomorrow, I think. I may have got that wrong but believe they’ve a night in Madrid on the way it’s possible they don’t head out ‘til late today and get straight onto the Cuba flight from the Madrid one I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
We had a beautiful sunrise today over Haiti, I took a picture but, inevitably, it doesn’t look that good. Like my whale shots the other day, just featureless sea in the photo! Cuba has been in sight since dawn, possibly before but I was asleep before that.
A couple of ships around but no yachts for a couple of days. I’ve tried to pick up some Cuban Radio but so far without success. Boxcar Willie on my MP3 machine has done in the battery and I can’t charge it at the moment……
The Breeze is now in the SE at 12 knots so I’ve handed the pole and we’re slipping along at about 4.75 knots with the wind just abaft the beam. We were doing about the same before I brought the pole in but it looked to me like she’d be happier without it,, and she looks happier, the sail that is, just not any faster.
My sheet that I had up the flag halyard had become wrapped in a tweaker I’d put up to pull the lazyjacks away from the mast, all now sorted.
Slainte for now
Jock and Yemaya
All the best for a safe landfall on Cuba Jock. Salsa time!
Good to hear the Argyll gang starting as they mean to go on 🤣. There's a large & smelly nesting colony of red footed Boobies on Little Cayman which I visited a year ago - not too far from you. X