Rhumb - Day 9 - Sammy the Snake

This one is dedicated to Sean and Billy.

To explain the relevance of the title of this log, it is first important to relate a little story from a recent sailing holiday in Croatia.

Skipper Bill was tasked with the none too onerous task of instructing Sean (illustrious and tenacious, but a novice mariner nevertheless) in the complexities of the bowline. So, we are into the second week and a normally patient Bill slaps a handful of rope in Sean's lap and demands the infamous bowline. After a few minutes, the pile of rope has metamorphosed into another pile of rope. On asked what the knot is called, we learn from Sean that it is called 'Sammy the Snake'. What type of knot is it comes the next question? After very careful consideration Sean retorts 'its a slippery knot'. It's use is yet to be discovered.

Sammy has never been truly replicated, however, it does bring us to the relevance of the tale. For those of you who have been watching our excruciatingly slow progress over the past three days, may have also noticed our rather wiggly water track as we battled to get something out of wind that was non-existent and from, seemingly, all directions. Accordingly, we give you our water track "Sammy the Snake' reincarnated. We are pleased also to confirm no 'Sammy's' in knot form on board - as yet!!

Thankfully now the Trades have re-estrablished and we have had a much better day (Monday) moving along in winds of between 9 and 18 knots. It would seem that those who had a better start managed to keep ahead of the Doldrums which we annoyingly got caught up in.

Skipper had a bit of an incident when he misplaced his footing and bashed his knee against the cockpit coaming. Painful and bruised, he did look on the bright side as it took his mind off his hurty hand, which in turn took his mind off his hurty elbow. The spider and the fly comes readily to mind. We know a song about that!

Not a lot else to report, apart from sun, sea, stars, dolphins, banter and more banter. As this is penned, the Moon, Jupiter, Mars and Venus are in one long line down to the east where dawn is just breaking - quite a sight.

Rhumb over - N20.58 W31.05