Friday 24th October
BRING ME SUNSHINE!
Yes,
it's back, lots of sunshine, blue sky and 20 / 25 knots of breeze. Who would want
to be in the UK at the moment! Mmm well I'm back 3rd November.
Resolution: must spend more time every winter where the sun shines!
Every
day, as you will gather from these unexciting logs, is pretty much the same at
the moment, with good South East trade winds and on the whole excellent sailing.
Ian and I were talking and he was saying the difference between the perception
of sailing round the world and the reality was that although he was enjoying the
sailing (which was the main incentive to come), the time ashore was much more
interesting and he'd been to so many places he would never have gone in his
life, even as a tourist! (and that is 'interesting' in a positive way!).
I'm
inclined to agree (will I ever book hotel rooms with a sea view again!) and as
well some of the very good things about World ARC (just as ARC Europe proved)
are the social events (impromptu or organised) and the friends you make from the
other boats. Of course as we are now still a couple of weeks behind the others,
but we will be back on track in the New Year from Cape Town or possibly before.
Meanwhile Lindsey is stitching some leather protectors
onto the Yankee sheets in a effort to stop them chafing again and hopefully we
will be setting the Twistle again quite soon, which is needed as the wind has
moved more Easterly and we need to bear away to make the course.
WHAT A WONDERFUL
WORLD
'I
see skies of blue and clouds of white
The
bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I
think to myself, what ?.'
Well
its afternoon, the Twistle is up, perfect weather, perfect sailing, Malcy has
cooked us brunch of bacon, sausage, beans (ugh!), scrambled egg and bacon and we
have for about only the second time on this trip had a glass of wine (or two)
for lunch. Yes, it's a wonderful world!
So
then into the usual, Sundowners, Clare, peanuts etc. Tonight salmon is on the
menu followed by Music (by John Miles in particular) plus many more old
favourites. We are singing away in the cockpit and Ian is doing acrobatics on
the overhead rail! Having turned 360 degrees on the bar he descends and is
thrown onto the starboard settee! Fortunately he survives to do the washing
up!
We
have moved our watches now to Mauritius time, so we gained 1.5 hours today and
at 20:55 local we are just under 900 nm from Mauritius. 16.53S
72.51E
So
I'm on at 3:30, so its good night from
me!