Slip the lines, stow the fenders away....
Hi, well we've all arrived safely in Gibraltar and today we're off. It's going to take about 4 days to get to the Canaries where we'll top up with water, fuel and perishable food. We're also going to stop for an evening so that we can re-charge our batteries with rest and recuperation or more likely, further deplete them with beer !! We've now decided that we won't be stopping in Cape Verde as we don't have time if we want to reach Antigua by Christmas. We have, however, bought some mince pies, decorations and secret santa presents in case we're still at sea. The weather here is about 20 degrees celsius and sunny. We've got an easterly wind which will take us out of the Straits of Gibraltar nicely and then as we track south we expect the wind to move round to the north so it should all be downwind sailing. There is a regional wind phenomenon here called a "Lavant" which blows through the Straits. The wind can reach 50 knots but it's very localised so if it does occur it should only be short lived.
We've spent the last two days preparing the boat which has been a lot of work, you would be surprised what needs doing to get the boat up to speed for a passage of this distance. Unlike coastal sailing, if something goes wrong or is missing, you can't simply nip into the nearest port and sort it out. I was tasked with victualling yesterday which takes a great deal of planning and buying. We've got 11 people on board and we expect to be at sea for 3 weeks. We've gone for the usual selection of dinners which include Spaghetti Bolognese, Chilli Con Carne, Chicken Curry and Tuna Pasta. We've got some fishing lines on board and we expect to catch some tuna. On previous trips crews have been known to catch six tuna or barracuda, each one big enough to feed the whole crew. We've also worked out a Watch System which consists of a 4 hours on, 8 hours off workload with a duty engineer, mother and cleaner.
I'm looking forward to cracking on with it now and have got the sort of nerves that you get when you are about to do a presentation to a big audience or before playing in a crunch football match. It's hard to know how the rest of the crew feel but I suspect much the same as me.
I hope all is good with you, take it easy land lovers :)
We've spent the last two days preparing the boat which has been a lot of work, you would be surprised what needs doing to get the boat up to speed for a passage of this distance. Unlike coastal sailing, if something goes wrong or is missing, you can't simply nip into the nearest port and sort it out. I was tasked with victualling yesterday which takes a great deal of planning and buying. We've got 11 people on board and we expect to be at sea for 3 weeks. We've gone for the usual selection of dinners which include Spaghetti Bolognese, Chilli Con Carne, Chicken Curry and Tuna Pasta. We've got some fishing lines on board and we expect to catch some tuna. On previous trips crews have been known to catch six tuna or barracuda, each one big enough to feed the whole crew. We've also worked out a Watch System which consists of a 4 hours on, 8 hours off workload with a duty engineer, mother and cleaner.
I'm looking forward to cracking on with it now and have got the sort of nerves that you get when you are about to do a presentation to a big audience or before playing in a crunch football match. It's hard to know how the rest of the crew feel but I suspect much the same as me.
I hope all is good with you, take it easy land lovers :)
posted by Paul James at 12:30 pm
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