Umiko - UMIKO BLOG 5 Day 5 Flying Fish attacks 2 the fremake...

Dear Umiko Fans!

Blog 5 Day 5

At the time of the blog….
24Hr run 258nm with 3 hrs to run…
DTD 1652 (not that we are counting)

I hope this blog finds you well! Blog 5 day 5. We have had a fun day, the wind picked up and at times touched 25 kts. There was no horizon with the first dark ominous clouds in the sky with a light drizzle present. We had the radar on and luckily they were not the squalls we might expect further down the road.
A few of the crew have a few bumps and bruises and a few got a bit too much sun so were not feeling so well. This meant that “A” and “B” watch helped provide cover to keep the vessel moving as fast as possible in the right direction. At about 03:00 UTC the wind shifted round to the east and then south of east so we put a gybe in. We are now making a nice course to the SW. I will soon get the new weather and update the fleet positions. I think we will stay on this Gybe for about 200nm or so unless the wind gives us reason to do otherwise. We have managed to stay near the front of the fleet and given the broad scope of people on board and their broad experience levels this is a testament to their resilience and determination to sail the boat fast. What is nice is that everyone is getting on. There is a lot of laughter and a lot of banter.

Given the larger than normal amounts of time on watch and their helming in difficult conditions last night a shout out needs to go to Richard and David (EPIRB) on my watch who stepped up. Once everyone is fed and rested, we will have a comprehensive deck check including a trip up the rig to make sure everything is alright. That is after we do our “standby” housekeeping duties such as bilge and engineering checks hoovering etc. Prior preparation prevents poor performance and all that!
Right so to the flying fish… this is getting ridiculous. During our various watches last night we must have returned five flying fish from the deck to the sea, with Richard taking two direct hits. What takes the biscuit however is that while I was asleep on the leeward saloon sofa (racy racy) two flying fish managed to hit me by flying down the companionway hatch! Fish whisperer Eric luckily came to the rescue of the fish and a clean up of scales occurred. I am not sure that Fish Whisperer Eric has not put a hex on me!

The wind dropped down to ten knots this morning quite suddenly with the sea state associated with twenty knots. This meant we had to trim hard to keep the yacht p[powered up in the sloppy conditions. Luckily the lull was short lived and we are now back to 15kts or so. The trade winds certainly seem to be prevalent and reliable this year.

This morning the wind has eased somewhat and with us on the “right gybe” for cooking Karina has made us a fabulous cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and bacon.

That’s all for now folks. We have Sean’s birthday tomorrow so I am sure that will feature!

"Opportunities don't happen. You create them."
Chris Grosser

Olly OUT