Gitana - Fairy dust, brunch and morning musings

Sitting down out of the early afternoon sun, I'm trying to work out what
time it actually is right now; we've changed the boat clocks back 2 hours
now, we've still got another 2 to go before St.Lucia! It's been a
scorcher today, definitely in the tropics now!

I thought today, I'd just give you the low down of 'stuff that's happened'
to give you an idea about just a normal day - not an open day, not a show
day, not a racing day, just a regular one! I've been sending regular
updates to our Facebook 'S/Y Gitana' page as we can send a short message
via our race tracker - feel free to have a look and follow it to see more
snippets of our days away! You only have to 'like' or 'follow', no friend
requests required!

> - Fun 24hours:
Very slow one, the wind died off and we know Gitana likes wind! We have
some lighter sails and more race like sails, but with a moderate swell,
it's deemed not right to fly them.

> - Night watch musings:
Last night's watch was calm and chilled, with so many stars you wouldn't
believe. If you look up at Orion and Orion's belt (stars you can see at
home), at home there's just the main stars you can see, but here - it's
like he's got a sword, his head and a cloak of a million stars... it's
amazing! Then one shooting star after another, after another... so many
wishes, so many ideas! What was even cooler was alongside the boat you
get the little flashes of phosphorescence, little sparkles in the water.
Behind the boat, we seemed to leave a trail of them behind
us, like we were channeling pixie dust or fairy dust or something.
Something you can't capture in pictures or on video, just in your mind!
So so pretty!

> - Morning Musings:
7.30am this morning, sitting on deck - Mike and I spot a shoal of flying
fish - these things are amazing... when we think about adaptation (year 8
- you guys are on this!), we think about survival tactics - for flying
fish, they've developed wings and can propel themselves from the water at
speed and glide for what looks like over 100m over the the water!!

Then we realise, it's nearly 5000m deep where we are at the moment, that's
5km! That's a parkrun! It would take Mo Farah 13minutes to run that
distance (28minutes for me), that's insane!

8am, Dave appears at the hatch desperate for the spinnaker, but his
excitement is shortlived as attention is turned to mid trip repairs.

> - Gitana the unknown:
There's an element of the unknown with Gitana as she's spent much of the
last two years in refit, and as a full crew of 5 this is the first time
we've all sailed together, so we're learning as we go and taking measured
risks. Sometimes it feels like we need to let our hair down a little more
and just try new things to see what works and what doesn't, but as with
all boats, it's the skipper/owners decision to make and we're here to
support those. Essentially, we started so well with 170miles a day and the
last 24hours was only 142miles so we're adjusting. That said - we've
managed to come much further south than the 1st place boat and are still
in strong 3rd, racing ahead with some of the faster boat categories.

Today is mid-point of the journey and a calm weather moment to check the
state of the boat. We had the sails down today to make some repairs. The
headsail ropes had started to wear through at the clew, so the ends were
trimmed and re-tied. The main sail has a couple of areas of chafe (where
it wears down) one on the halyard (the rope that holds the sail up) which
had to be cut back and some of the sails - So we put patches on the sail
to protect if for the next 1500miles!

After all the rig/ sail repairs - time for brunch cooked ably by myself
and Dave. Bacon, eggs, beans and boat made bread with a cuppa!

> - Widow twanky:
It also became washing day! After Dave's soap sud explosion the other
day, it was a lesson in less is more. So, with a small amount of water in
a bucket with my trusty Dr.Beckman's travel wash (thanks mum!) my shorts,
undies and t-shirts are decorating the port rail on the boat like a bunch
of flags, swinging in the sunshine - I'm hoping they don't fly away. It
does feel a little awkward having some of those items up there, but I
don't think the boys are batting an eyelid. Especially when Dave stripped
down to his waist and showered on deck - life's about balance!

Tune! Mike just started playing George Ezra's 'Shotgun' acoustic version.

> - Who knew about the chocolate?:
Most importantly for the boys is their daily chocolate fix - now I thought
it really was a girl thing, turns out on Gitana, it's a boy thing! Des is
the chocolate guardian and keeps it all under his bunk, which prevents
sneaky consumption of it out of hours! Having decanted a load of choc
bars into a bag for the fridge, the others accuse him of snaffling all the
chocolate seeing him with all the wrappers - cue Des running back to his
cabin with the remainder of it and handing me a kitkat on the way - see,
balance!

So, now chilling in my bunk with the laptop and the boys are on lunch
number 2 on deck (we had brunch at 11.30am and they're on sandwiches
already, dinners around 5-5.30pm tonight, you'd think we hadn't fed them
today!) Living in a household of girls, I've never truly appreciated how
much food men really eat!

> - No time for the groundhog:
Today has really been about getting ourselves ready for the second half of
this journey, sorting the rig, tidying up, checking food supplies, topping
up the water and taking a breath! The last few days every day it's been
'10 days to go'... I really hope tomorrow will be '9 days to go!!' Ground
hog day worked for Bill Murray, but on Gitana, we're looking to chew down
those miles!

So at the time of writing, we have 1568 nautical miles to run, which is 10
days at 6.5knots, 9 days at 7knots... (there's a lot of maths on this
trip, I've got a whole bunch of maths challenges I must send!) We are on
exactly the right course of 265degrees and sailing well!

Here's to another 9 days at sea and arrival in the Caribbean!

> - One for Meli's:
One last bit for my goddaughter Amelia who named our auto helm 'Poppy' so I
wouldn't be the only girl onboard, the boys have all adopted the name and
we
wanted to thank you! Poppy's been doing brilliantly and holds the speed
record for the boat so far 12.4kts! I hope you're enjoying your Gitana
bedtime
stories and can't wait to see you at Christmas! Love, Peace, Jellybabies
and a whole lot of chocolate cake when I see you xx

Best wishes to everyone who's following, love to you all! Looking forward
to hearing from you!
TPA: Who got the most points for 'Switch off Fortnight'?

Kirsty ('Miss' if i teach you, remember!)

xx

--
SY Gitana