Gwendoline - 7. day at sea

S/Y Gwendoline M - Atlanterhavskryds
27. november. 11.50 UTC.
On bord Lene, Bente, Annette, Maiken, Oliver, Orla og Kim
Position: 19.53.985N 22.20.460W

Yesterday morning, Lene got up early and backed fresh buns for all of us, so we, for the first time on this trip, got freshly backed buns for breakfast - uhmm.

After such a delightful morning start, we called Lene's sister Pia on our satellite phone and surprised her with a little birthday song on her birthday. She was very surprised and happy for our call.

We have had dolphin visits many times - and yesterday Maiken got the most awesome underwater video of them. We also found time to do some yoga and exercise on the for deck. Actually it was the ladies who did all the hard work, as Oliver was below deck entertaining himself with his play station for the first time on this trip. In the meantime Orla and I solved all the problems in the world in the cockpit.

Our trash bin was filled for the first time yesterday. Oliver established a remote "long time storage" in the for peak - which is separated from the rest of the ship.

For lunch we had leftovers from the latest three dinners. Tomato soup, a pasta dish and a dish with mashed potatoes.

Bente was in charge of the dinner. She spoiled us all rotten with a very delicious Swedish sausage dish and a very crispy salad on the side.

After dinner and dishes, the two night watch teams which consists of Orla and Kim on the first night watch and Maiken and Bente on the second night watch went to bed. Lene, Oliver and Annette settled in the cockpit for a movie night. Around 21.30 UTC a small seabird landed in the cockpit. This was the third visit from a small seabird. Oliver gently collected the bird in his hand - it was not at all afraid. Oliver described it as holding a velvet glove in his hand - that's how soft and cuddly the little bird was. When stretching his hand up and out over the side, the bird flew away again.

Oliver's theory is that the birds are sleeping on the sea surface. When we come sailing in the night we wake them up, and they are then drawn towards our cockpit light.

At 23.30 UTC the bilge alarm went off. It is set to go off, when more than 15 liters of water is in the bilge. This is a very small amount of water. Last year when cruising the Baltic sea, we experienced that 800 liter of fresh water was pumped out in the motor bilge because of a faulty pressure gate. Nothing happened except we had lost all our drinking water. Due to this experience, we installed bilge alarms this spring - and they have already proven their value. It turned out that we had a very small leakage at the propeller shaft, which over several days had accumulated the 15 liters of seawater. By tightening the flange giving pressure on the grease string, we stopped the leakage.

Today November 27th 2016 Lene and I have Silver Wedding Anniversary.

So to celebrate this, we had a very large brunch with all the necessary trimmings. You can find pictures on our web log on www.worldcruising.com

A special thank you to Goldie, Irma, Anette and Torben and finally also Birgitte for the fine gifts and cards.

As a special treat, Oliver stroke luck fishing. He reeled in a 67 cm long and 4 kg. heavy dorado (mahi mahi). This lovely fish will serve as the first course at our anniversary dinner tonight.

Isn't life just great?

Over and Out from
S/Y Gwendoline M
Atlanten