New IT Skills and Dolphins!

I’m on night watch and experimenting with writing in ‘pages’ for copy and pasting into the e mail programme which has the annoying disappearing paper habit.

I’ve just written a reply to an email from Graham, thanks Graham, and seem to be able to paste it without a big issue which is a relief

Yesterday - day 2, Wednesday, was windy  16-20 knots Easterly in  the morning and early afternoon. We had a packet of pretty rubbish soup with the remains of Lidls mini baguettes for lunch. The afternoon was quiet with the wind ……sorry, I had to take a break to watch some dolphins alongside, they announced themselves with a couple of puffs then jumps out of the water before swimming alongside and then up to the bow, not much to be seen as there’s only a little phosphorescence at the moment but always it’s lovely to see and hear dolphins…. What was I saying, the wind died a little in the afternoon and having put in reefs overnight we shook them out and finished the afternoon with full sail. We thought about putting the assymetric up again late in the afternoon but have decided not to have that flying at night and didn’t. At sunset we had a beer, well two of us did, and then spaghetti carbonara for dinner. I’ve handled the catering so far as I’ve not been feeling queezy at all but I think everyone will be feeling more themselves pretty soon.

Gosh, this is so much better - being able to type without having to constantly faff about with the disappearing page on the email app.  The wind declined overnight  and it’s now 0430 with the wind on the beam almost and quite light at 6-8 knots we’re on a close reach doing 4-6 knots and the sea has died down quite a bit which is helping a lot because the pitching and rolling would steal all the energy from our sails.

Last night was a beautiful starry night with not a cloud to be seen and the only light pollution coming from our tricolour masthead light and the instruments. Lovely. Tonight is not so clear, stars are visible a little through what I imagine are probably high clouds but it’s hard to tell in the dark.

So far, since we left harbour under motor for an hour we’ve only had to motor once, again for an hour which was last night. We’re going to have to start the engine shortly because the batteryies need some charge, or will do soon. The solar panels are being shadowed by the sails for quite a bit of the day which is annoying because the sun has been quite bright, they still work in slight shadow but nothing like as well as when in full sunshine and I didn’t manage to get a replacement for the one damaged on the way down here which is only working at about half capacity.

Well now it’s 11 O’clock and we’re back under motor having tried sailing for an hour but the wind died so we gave up. We had a pod of dolphins playing with us for ages and having consulted the book they appear to be a new species unknown before, well either that or we’re not very good at identifying them we think they are possibly ‘pantropical spotted’ or ‘Atlantic spinners’ but with a white spot on the top of their beak to sow doubt upon our Identificational prowess.

Nearly noon for the position and numbers, and whilst I think about it, if anyone sent an e mail in the last couple of days, other than Graham, please re send it, it appeared that I was downloading two e mails from the satellite server but then got cut off and when I re connected they were neither there nor in my inbox. When I say other than Graham, it was because I received one from him telling me that the position was updating fine, thanks Graham.

Daily run for today 139 miles but more South than West or South West because we think that the wind will fill in quicker from the South and East than further West.

All the best for now

Jock and gang.