Saturday – blimey the days are slipping by!
Saturday
The days roll on with little change , other than we are back in 1.4 knots of Westerly current with its accompanying chop and slowed up progess over the chart. Looking ahead our latest information is that the high we are trying to circumvent is going to move NE so rather than head up on to the reach we have been looking forward to , we must continue downwind to avoid wallowing in its calms. The winds have increased sufficiently that a kite is now marginal if it is to be left to its own devices so it is back to the poled out jib top.
This morning I had two incidences of how important it is to keep a good lookout , even in these vast “empty “ spaces. First we passed within 100 m of a fair sized buoy which I guess was an oceanographic research buoy. It had a light on top and I wont be snoozing so much on tonight’s watches as it would make a heck of a dent if you hit it. The second was a ship on a direct collision course that I had spotted a long way out and called up for a chat He was perfectly civil and agreed to pass port to port , but declined to chat as he was in the middle of fire and safety drills and was a “little bit busy”! It set me thinking , and so later this morning Lynda and I took a leaf out of his book and went once more through our fire and safety drills as well.
Lynda’s solution to staying awake on the night time watches is what she calls “Dodgy Dancing”. This involves putting one of Bryony’s compilation tapes on the ipod , standing in the gangway holding on to a winch handle with each hand , and gyrating in the way that is only possible with just the moon and stars as witness, although she claims she is practising her embarrassing moves for Bryony’s graduation celebration. You have been warned.
We have lost contact with “Zwit” , our Dutch fellow travellers , but due to some quirk of the atmosphere have been in VHF communication with our Viking friends despite being 60 miles apart. So what with that and our e-mails it somehow doesn’t feel lonely out here at all! So greetings to all. At midday ships time ( now 1400UT) our position was 36 53N 50 42 W . All well.