Bolero - Day 13

Day 13

The colours in the sunsets seem to be getting more intense as we move further west, and the sunset at the end of Day 12 was no exception, enhanced further by some clouds in the sky which reflected the pinks and mauves.

Bolero sailed well on the broad reach. Maz and Nick took over from Gwyn and Ian at 01:00hrs. Ian was having a great time on the helm, luffing up to bear away down the waves, sometimes getting the old girl to romp along at 10-10.8 knots. The wheel was very light and the boat perfectly balanced.

The next watch was not quite so pleasurable…….. there were some boats that we could see on our AIS about 10 miles away that appeared to be going very slowly in tight circles. We changed course to avoid them and as we moved closer, so they increased in numbers - some were giving an AIS a signal others weren’t. There seemed to be a mother ship which was showing correct lights, the smaller ones just had white flashing lights. We kept comparing the position of the boats on the water with those on the AIS and accounted for most of them, there were a couple that kept appearing and disappearing. We needed another pair of eyes to keep tabs on them all, so poor Ian was awoken from his slumbers. Ian confirmed Nick’s thoughts and were able to bear away through the final two boats and after a very tense 2 hours resume our original course.

A cup of tea and change of watch and the usual Bolero night routine continued at 04:00hrs.

The wind had settled to a steady 15/16 knots and seas were smoother so we prepared to launch the spinnaker. The Genoa was furled and all the sheets and guys attached to the spinnaker which was then hoisted in its sock. The spinnaker was set, and then fell gracefully into the water. The retrieval of the billowing sail was not so graceful. It was hauled full of water over the guard rail and wrestled onto the deck. It seems that the stainless steel wire in the snuffer sheered causing the sail to fall down. Unfortunately as we dragged the spinnaker though the water, still sailing, the snuffer turned itself inside out and became detached from the sail. None of us saw this happen.

That was a bit of a dampener to the morning, but we soon had the white sails set again and we were making 6.5 knots through the water.

Drum roll distance at 10:00 hrs Atlantic Adventure mid Atlantic time was 185.5 miles to go to the way point. We haven’t changed the clocks to Atlantic Adventure western time / Grenada time as time is a bit of a lottery now, Nick downloads the weather information at 07:00 and 19:00 GMT time, and the World Cruising position data at 12:00 GMT. As long as we have these, then we eat when we are hungry and sleep when we are tired in the day. The night watches are more rigid.

We all caught up on some sleep at times during the afternoon. We were able to open the deck hatches again this afternoon so there has been some air moving through the boat. It is certainly very humid now.

We thought we had eaten the last of the fresh tomatoes on board at lunchtime with our Brie and bacon sandwiches. Gwyn found two more that we hadn’t stored in the fridge so made a tomato and mozzarella salad to go with the beetroot risotto. Yummy!

This has been our last full day at sea, we are all looking forward to arriving in Grenada, but are settled into life and the routine of Bolero. We certainly have enough food for another week - not a lot of fresh food now, but lots of tins and dried food…. And of course our bottled meals, so we would continue to eat well for a good while.

Tomorrow we will arrive in St George’s after 13 days at sea. All enjoyable, some more challenging than others.

Fair winds
Nick, Maz
Ian and Gwyn