23:53.55 N 29:25.71 W
California Blue
Mark Bashforth / Jayson Bashforth
Fri 30 Nov 2007 20:33
|
Blog nr. 5 from California Blue - We are
now 1/3 of the way to St. Lucia 30/11-07
Hello Everyone,
The trade winds continued thru the night giving us
a 24 hour run of 177 nm. Our best distance per day yet. Wind speeds approached
15 knots at times and our SOG (speed over ground) ranged from 7-10
knots.
The winds were also more consistent in direction
allowing the Parasailor to behave with little intervention from the
helmsman.
While on my watch I noticed a series
of squalls that appeared on the radar approaching from the north. It was still
dark out as sunrise at this longitude is 08:30 UTC so it was difficult to
determine the size of the squally. Given yesterday's experience with the
Parasailor in a squall I thought it best not to risk it and around 07:00
UTC, I woke Jayson up early in case we had to retrieve the sail at the last
minute. Fortunately it was a series of small squalls that just got us wet and
moved southwards as quick as it had come.
We tried our hand at fishing today but to no avail.
I think that the ocean swells are too big coupled with a SOG of 8 knots plus. We
haven't given up though and will try again tomorrow.
The boys spent some quality time reading in the
morning. Jayson had a cat nap in the afternoon while the rest of us had Tapas
and played poker. It was an easy day that just flew by. In fact after 5 days of
sailing the days are starting to blur into one another. We can remember UTC
which we live by and the date, but please don't ask us the day on the
week.
For dinner Vic made chicken fajitas and Mexican
rice. It was marvelous.
At the time of this writing, 20:00 UTC the wind is
blowing about 15 knots and may build up to 20 tonight. We should have another
great run tonight.
Still not boat in sight for 48 hours now. Based on
the position reports however we know they are out there. If our calculations are
correct there are two other Beneteau 57's sailing parallel to us but
further north and south.
We overhead a Swedish ARC participant chat on
the VHF otherwise the only sign of life is us :)
Here's a few words from El
Spencero:
And now for the second time in five blogs, Spencer makes his return to the blogging scene. All is well so far and we are almost a third of the way there. Vic made some quite scrumptious fajitas with a Moroccan twist tonight and it is currently Jayson and I sitting in the cockpit with our super fly homemade lava lamp/nav light getting our night watch on. Our parasailor is working wonders for us and we’re picking up some good speed. Well that’s all for this edition of Blog Time With SpencerÔ
That's all for today.
Thanks for all your emails. Keep them coming.
Hope you like the photo's.
More tomorrow.
Take care,
Mark and the crew of California Blue
|
