Getting the hang of it!

Well yesterday improved considerably from the morning, by late lunch time we had a reasonable breeze and the sea was coming down.

By tea time it was lovely we’d settled onto port tack with the wind at about 120 degrees relative and the sails mostly full. By Sundowner time we had full sail but with some squalls approaching went to a couple of reefs, every time I put a reef in the wind subsequently dropped but  just reefing and unreefing isn’t so bad. The late afternoon and evening were lovely, we sat out for our sundowners and nick nacks, (final packet) until quite late and after Patrick had cooked a tuna bake made with sardines, on account of the tuna having run out, which we had for dinner I left a reef in the main overnight and full genoa and DIDN’T TOUCH THE SAILS ALL NIGHT, it’s a lovely morning, we’ve just about 100 miles to go with fair weather on the forecast and sea down to about 2 metres.

We’ve just had striped dolphins playing in the bow wave for 10 minutes as I cleared away the foam from the spurling pipe (where the anchor chain goes down to the forepeak) and shortly I’ll get the anchor on the bow for if we want / need to anchor. The sun’s out and I have some pants drying on the rails.

We’d been saving some bacon for a carbonara but as we have two sets of left overs (tuna bake and sausage risotto) we had scrambled egg and bacon for breakfast with the last of the bacon - the American stuff which is actually about 90% fat, and I’m not exaggerating.

I’ve had a shave and wash and change so feel quite fresh but presumably will get covered in sea water later or food, as that always seems to happen with clean clothes and Jocks.

The bird life too is much busier with shearwaters and petrels now fairly common. Another ship was spotted on the AIS yesterday but nothing visual for a few days now.

Well that’s all for now.

Slainte Jock, Patrick and Yemaya.