Friday 22nd March
A TALE OF TWO SAILS!
Malcy appears to be a lot better today and the forward heads doesn't have a
permanently engaged sign! You can tell immediately he is better by the way
he gets up, grouses, looks out of the companionway, glances at the
instruments and without any discussion or so much as looking at a weather
forecast or anything else so unimportant, orders 'Spinnaker up!' This was a
daily occurrence on the ARC and this particular disease (unlike his
lavatorial affliction) seems to be incurable!
Fortunately on the 2007 ARC and now, I am on watch before him and have
looked at the weather forecast as well as having seen the conditions for the
last 2 or 3 hours! For once he did have a point and it was marginal whether
to stay dead downwind with the Twistle or bear off 20 or 30 degrees and
hoist the spinnaker. Eventually without the aid of our 30 odd year old
calculator (which has served all 5 Quasars and we discovered will no longer
divide and was unsentimentally buried at sea) it was concluded that the
extra speed from the spinnaker probably didn't warrant the extra distance to
be sailed by tacking downwind - so no kite today!
We heard from Into The Blue' who are about 100 miles ahead that they had
blown out their 'Parasailor' in a load of wind, which gave us more hope of
wind ahead, however as I write this at 1 am local on Saturday (now 8 hours
behind UK time) the wind has dropped and we are flogging along at under 5
knots (the Twistle needs a good breeze to be effective!), so no doubt
tomorrow around 10 am there will be the inevitable shout (hopefully not from
the heads): Spinnaker up!'
Not much happening today, people doing various jobs, in my case cleaning the
main saloon, the aft heads and cooking a 'Spag Bog', which went down
particularly well and with everyone having seconds, a massive pan full was
all but finished! Barry had yet another fish on the line, which got away.
Lets hope he gets one on Saturday as he is evening chef and likes to play a
game of brinkmanship and never takes anything out of the freezer on the
basis that fish will be on the menu, so probably explains why Thursday's
evening meal was pumpkin soup!
Well it is a fantastic full moon tonight and I have amused myself (if not
you!) and passed the time on this lonely and rather boring watch by writing
this junk! So goodnight and enjoy your Easter!
Our position at 09:45 UST Saturday: 9.41 S 122.34 W. 974 miles from the
Marquesas.