It has been a strange first few days in the Atlantic.
Light or no wind and at times a glassy sea. We even had fog during our second
night. The second night's entertainment included brilliant bioluminescence and
four visits by dolphins at various times. The moon is waning but is still so
bright that we don't need a torch at night and it illuminated the visiting
dolphins beautifully.
Fishing has been unsuccessful thus far and we are
already down one lure despite the lack of a bite.
Last night saw our first real sailing with 8-14 knot
winds and a comfortable broad reach as we headed deeper south.
The question in all our minds is when do we jibe and
head west. The old adage 'go south until the butter melts, then head west' has
resulted in a lot of discussion.
Namely, how do we define when the butter has melted, is
our butter of the same consistency as butter of old, how big should the block of
butter be, does the container matter and where should it be stored in the
boat?
Nicholas, skipper, suggests that when he can push his
finger through the block in less than two seconds, Iona, sail tweaker,
suggests when a 250g block of butter slides on a surface at an angle of 10
degrees below the horizontal, Michele, chief cook, suggests when 20% of a block
of butter is runny in the bottom of the butter dish and Fisherman Jono, wants to
throw butter at the wall and see if it splats!
We have left the butter at room temperature and jibed to
the west before any of the above were put to the test, preferring to trust to
grib files and predict wind for our routing.