Day 26
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44:17.000n
35:37.140w Distance to home:
1517 miles Distance run
today: 139 miles Course
080 We’ve been eating sushi …
And you know what that means ! As the skipper say’s “it
doesn’t get much better than this”. Domestic
It’s blowing 25 knots now
and it was 30 knots overnight so the sea has had time to build up nicely. We are taking the waves on the port
quarter in order to hold a course for home and it’s like living in a washing
machine with a vicious corkscrew motion. Overnight we passed 8000
miles of Breakfast was a challenge
this morning and Jez managed to crack an egg onto his bare feet rather than into
the frying pan which was something of a moving target. Most things are nailed
down after 3 weeks at sea so we remain fairly organised down below and the seas
are becoming bigger but more organised as the day progresses which is much
easier to live with. Wills was in
the cockpit in full “party gear” (oilies) this morning but it’s now safe in
shorts and Tee shirt. Wills had his second
close encounter with a tanker this morning. The AIS system is pretty clever and
can determine what your closest point of approach will be to any other vessel in
the vicinity. Twice on Wills’ watch this has now read ‘0.0nm’, pretty much
telling you that if you don’t do anything about it, there will be a collision.
Both times we have fortunately been able to negotiate with the tanker to
slightly change their course in order to give us comfortable room to pass as
they continue to plough through the seas into wind. The bread making has been
stepped up a notch and there was a suggestion from Tim earlier that there may be
need to take a Mary Berry style approach to judging each loaf, watch this space.
For anyone interested in
Wills’ latest book, Tom will be pleased to hear that he has decided to tackle ‘A
Short History of Nearly Everything’, that’ll probably see him to the UK
now… Sailing
This has been pretty
simple really. The wind has been
from behind and building so all we have had to do is drop one of our pair of
headsails and leave the furling genoa poled out to starboard with uphaul and
downhaul led back to the cockpit. We then adjust the sail
area to suit the wind and maintain about 6 knots. This is easy enough for one person to do
on night watch and if necessary we could furl the sail away completely from the
cockpit. Natural
History OK on to the meaty matter
of the day. Picture the scene. It’s
about The sun is shining, it’s
not yet too windy and Wills and Jez are sitting in the cockpit, looking aft with
book in hand. Tom Petty’s Greatest
Hits is on the stereo, I can’t remember the track but for the sake of artistic
license let’s call it “The Waiting”. Then the line starts to
run off the reel with the familiar rapid clicking noise. We have a drill for this
but it all goes out the window as we are all in the wrong places so Jez grabs
the rod, Will grabs the tiller and both yell for Tim at the top of their
voices. Tim arrives and
reluctantly, Jez hands over because: 1.
It’s Tim’s turn to land a fish 2.
It’s Tim’s boat and he calls the shots 3.
If you have ever been around Tim when there is a big fish to be
landed (remember those days Ricky?), then you will know that he gets a bit
enthusiastic and you really don’t want to get in the way. Wills grabs the gaff,
moves the boat to windward and drops the halyard for the small headsail. Jez goes forward and grabs the pole and
mess of sail lying on deck, and all the time, Tim is reeling in his
fish. It’s fighting from the
outset which is not what Dorado’s tend to do so we have high hopes and after 5
minutes we see the flash of silver and confirm those hopes. It’s Tuna for tea! Will gaffed our catch and
11 lbs of angry muscle was dropped into the cockpit in a pool of
blood. Vodka was poured into the
gills to kill the beast and all was going well until Tim threw a bucket of
seawater over the fish to clean off the blood and better admire his prize. This brought the tuna back to life,
thrashing around in the boat and keen to get away. Tim settled matters with a single blow
from a heavy lewmar winch handle which is why you will see photos of us holding
the right hand side of the fish to camera. There is a tradition on
Sadie that the eye of a tuna, which is huge and a beautiful glassy blue colour,
is eaten raw. Ricky started this on
our trip out in 2013. Sadly this
tradition has ended as there was no appetite for such madness this
time. We did have a sushi
starter for tea though and have 4 really good loins of tuna in the fridge. If the boat stays steady enough we shall
be eating the first of these tonight. Tim had optimistically
downloaded a fish identification document to his tablet and we reckon that we
have landed an 11 lb Blackfin Tuna.
Dave S, can you check we are in the right range for these?
Today’s
responses Lizzie – Glad Faye’s
back, enjoy Guides. Who won BGT
then ? Frank – Rig and
underpants fine at this point.
Inclement weather threatens both but we reckon we’ll be all right. Thanks for Juno and Black Pig updates.
Jason – anything you want
to tell us about Thirslet ? Dave P – Our keel’s fine,
how’s yours doing ? Joe – Hope you start to
feel better before you drive your mum mad. Linda and Don – glad
you’re your following us ,see you in September. Tom – Glad to hear you
are busy as ever, no change there. I’m sure the roads were empty at
Bye for now
Sadie |