FRIDAY 16th
July 2010
00.00hrs Our first waypoint is 300 miles from
port Vila,
The world ARC have given us a number of waypoints
for the trip to Mackay in Australia, basically keep us out of trouble with
reefs.
The first 12 hrs we travelled just a mere 70 miles,
for us , its almost like being stopped.
The wind is all over the place as well as being up
and down, 23 knots now and 12 knots 15 mins later.
03.00hrs, The wind has reached 23 knots again
and its much chillier here at night than previously experienced, Jackets
on to keep warm.
04.00hrs, Skipper called Aileen to do her watch,
she has had an extra hour in the scratcher. lucky girl.
We trimmed the sails and got the maximum out
of the boat , soon we had caught up with the leaders, skip was happy and hit the
scratcher.
06.00hrs, Scotty took
over watch, at this stage we had lost some ground again. thats the trouble with
going to sleep.
However, it was a beautifull night with all the
stars dancing away up there specially for us. Its great to be at sea
again.
08.00hrs, We decided to have a look at our
other cruising chute up forward under the forward bunk.
This was only ever used by us once, and that was on
the " Dublin to Dingle " race in 2007. it has never seen the light of day
since.
One hour later , we had our solid blue coloured
Spinniker up and running. and it was great to have something for any down wind
legs to Mackay.
We went from 4.8knots to 6.8 knots , blooming great
guns.
12.00hrs we are now 24 hours at sea,
and have only travelled a mere 141 miles.. very poor,
However, its a lovely day and we have flat seas for
a change.
16.00hrs The wind is going more ahead and we
are 5 miles off our course, so we decided to drop the spinniker
and sail white sails only and claw our way back
onto the rum line.
MURPHY'S LAW, no sooner was the spinniker on the
deck and tidied up, than the flippen wind went aft again and died right down,
ahhhhhhh
we could have screamed.... ahhhhhhhh
Now , we did spend the day, tweeking and fiddling
with the chute and got the most out of it, so we were real happy with all
of that.
Later , Skipper prepared dinner, This consisted of
Boneless leg of lamb, baked potatoes with cream and butter, creamed carrots on
crushed cabbage
along with mint jelly,, all very nice, except
the lamb was not good,
Its frustrating to go to all that trouble and find
the meat is crappy.. however , we swallowed the lot anyway.
The watches for tonight are as follows
:- 21.00hrs /
00.00hrs Aileen,
00.00hrs / 03.00hrs
Skipper
03.00hrs / 06.00hrs
Scotty
06.00hrs / 09.00hrs
Skipper
That all for today,
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde ( Skipper )