Across the Pacific - Day 7
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Wed 31 Mar 2010 08:00
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06:41.410S 106:54.426W Wednesday 31st March Last night was a beautiful night sail. Jackamy was just gliding along doing between 7 and 9 knots and it was very peaceful. There was even a full moon lighting up the way for us. We tried to take a picture but we really need to read the camera manual as it was just turning out as a blur, oops! The clocks went back an hour today so we are now 7 hours behind the UK. We normally dread having to put the clocks back because it means we have an even longer day when our days are already very long but it hasn't been too bad today. I think it' because it is only an hour. When we had to do it crossing the Atlantic it was two hours and we really noticed that, the days would last forever! We've learnt this morning that Jaime on Bionic has suspected kidney stones and was in a fair bit of pain. Miss Tippy set up a rendezvous point with Bionic and managed to reach them within a couple of hours. Meanwhile Sheila on Miss Tippy had been in touch with Falmouth Coastguard and sought advice on what medication to give. She is a qualified nurse so she has been transferred onto Bionic to look after Jaime along with his wife Carmen. They are going to continue onto the Marquesas with Miss Tippy sailing close by. Also Blue Magic are trying to catch up as someone from their boat might have to transfer onto Miss Tippy as it is now just Brian and the kids. Although Gaultine have turned back to assist as they have different drugs and a qualified skipper who is willing to move to either boat. Another benefit of the rally! It has been another lovely day sailing wise. The cruising chute has been up but it became a bit unruly so Paul made a wise choice and took it down. We have now have the downwind rig up and we're doing around 8 knots. Paul is always complaining that it is just him who sails the boat as me and Amy only get involved when we're asked or told to do something. So today whilst Paul was down below when the boat slowed down to 6 knots as the wind had died down Amy made the decision to fix the problem. She altered the course and pulled in the genoa a little (a minor adjustment) increasing the speed to 7.5 knots. When Paul appeared and asked what she was doing at the helm, Amy told him and he replied by saying "Don't mess with my sails"!!!! Never again can he complain that we don't do anything - he secretly likes to do it all himself! At around 3 am when Paul came to take over on watch I joked that I had had a busy night dodging cruise liners, cargo ships and yachts as there is no traffic out here whatsoever. But then we suddenly noticed about 2 and a half miles in front there were lights dead ahead. It was Norsa!!!!! They gave us a call on the radio to check that we had seen them as if we didn't move we would have sailed right into their stern. We quickly made a few adjustments and sailed straight past them. 1300 miles from land and we are on exactly the same heading as another yacht! |