So it's day 4 on Ntanda, or is it day 5? (that
sounds familiar....) I guess officially it's day 5 as we started on Sunday, but
it feels like day 4 and as far as clean T shirts go its definately day
4.
It's been a somewhat wild ride so far, squalls a
plenty and a sail plan alternating between 2 sail reaching, poled out headsail
and occasional dabble with the kite. We've had a couple of wild broaches and
some serious 'rock n role' - never a good thing when you've got
2000+ NM to go.
It all got a bit serious yesterday when we
discovered rather large amounts of water in
the bilges. We had been raising eyebrows at each other for some time over the
amount of wet pumps we did every watch change and this came to a head when a
bilge check showed us awash. So kite down and the next four hours lifting all
the boards, checking sea cocks and keel bolts (gulp) until we discovered the
cause of the leak. The cockpit drains into 2 pipes that run under the
cockpit sole and one of these had come adrift. still nothing a couple of
soft wood bungs and a tea towel couldnt fix.
I now find I may be in trouble with Mrs Daly as the
rather fetching stripey tea towel I butcherd was in fact a family airloom.
Well come on...Jewellery, houses, castles even but a tea towel? How was I to
know! I think I'm innocent.
Well as you can imagine everyone was knackered so
no kite last night (we have only 3 drivers at the moment; it's a work in
progress and we just havent had the weather) but up it went this morning
and we are STONKING!
Speed trials so far has Mr D senior on 14.9kts
under kite and Mr D junior on 14.1kts, and the competition is fierce! I'll let
them have some fun then take the wheel and show them how its done!
We're into the melted butter now and starting our
looong hike west, hoping of course that our decision to go south will pay off
against our more 'adventurous' adversaries who are rhumb lining it further
north.
Thats about it for today, sleep time now so
TTFN
Tackleberry.