Cleone - CLEONE Leg 22A Day 11 - Wine Whine

Look, just like in Government, every one makes mistakes.  Y'know I really did believe we could, well not spin it exactly, but convince John P and so on that even though he couldn't read it for himself (sorry John, even if you could've understood the syntax, old CP mates, blah-di-blah), the Pointy Heads of Porton Down did write 20 minutes to Armageddon (oh do shut up Tony.  You're not making history, you're part of it now - GB).  Sorry, wrong disc there, what was I saying?  Oh yes, this Rioja thing.  The Skipper has had more complaints than about anything else put out from this boat.  The Editor has advanced an unconvincing argument that he deliberately let this school-boy error through; he knows perfectly well how to spell Rioja; he only did it as a kind of pollling exercise.  Well I don't buy that one any more than you do.  Fact is the bloke is a neanderthal who has probably never drunk a decent supermarket red in his life, let alone visited a branch of Bottoms Up for himself (if they haven't gone out of business yet).  And talking about that, the Skipper is convinced that if we are not able to find our resident Biscuit Monster, the nuclear option is sensible (an extreme case of atomising one's nose to spite everyone else's faces).  He says making a nuke is child's play, and given the number of bits and pieces he's got in his spares boxes, I wouldn't put it past him.  Lets hope we arrive in Salvador soon.

 

The sailing continues to provide frustration and fascination, with the balance marginally towards the latter.  The time limit of our arrival, imposed and modified by the Bahia Race, puts us under pressure, and the chances of our arriving before this is up look slim.  Bruce's weather is frustratingly accurate; most of the time we are running dead down-wind with slightly too little wind to give us decent boat speed and slightly too much for our remaining down-wind sail to safely stand (remember the Spinnaker, folks?), and with a course that is slightly too far north or slightly too far south of our Rhumb Line (qv, Anne).  The miles to go box on the GPS is watched avidly by the helmsmen, and it's downward progress is agonisingly slow.  Actually given the conditions, we are making pretty good time, but even if we are the lowest handicapped, and therefore the slowest boat, in the fleet, its hard work being at the back of the fleet.  We are all hoping that in Salvador the stocks of cold beer are being kept replenished, that the water in the showers is kept heated, that a decent berth awaits us, and that the laundrettes are ready with empty washing machines and plenty of soap.  We are going to need all of these, believe me.

 

Meanwhile, all is well with us, and very best wishes to all of you.