Sea, sky, clouds, sun, flying fish AND dolphin today. The usual stuff for most of the day but in the afternoon we saw a pod of very energetic dolphin in our neighbourhood. They weren’t interested in us. In the midst of them was a large fish of some sort leaping out of the water. At first we thought they were all feeding on the same unseen school of smaller fish beneath the water. The big fish leapt out of the water in a very wild fashion a couple of times then it all went quiet. On reflection we concluded the better explanation was that the dolphin were collectively hunting the big fish and we witnessed its dying struggles.
In the morning I acted as net controller for the barefoot net. Propogation was not that good so I couldn’t hear all the boats clearly and needed help from others. We may change the time as a result.
For most of the day the wind had shifted more to the east causing us to down wind sail for the first time. Helen liked it because it made things very smooth but John and I weren’t so keen as it dropped our boat speed. We still managed a 24 hour run of 150nm but that was not as good as nthe 160nm-170nm we’ve grown used to – all while keeping our drive and house battery banks topped up from the regen.
The winds were also lighter in the morning so I used it as an excuse to use the 3rd reefing line as an adjustable outhaul. Since we moved aboard our outhaul (the line that tensions the foot of the mainsail) has been fixed in a position optimising our mainsail for upwind sailing. With the recent beam reach sailing I rued my neglect and not doing this conversion earlier. With Helen awake I pulled in the boom and put the boat into a reach to prevent any boom swing and went atop the bimini to do the work. Helen in her wisdom decided the boat needed to be put back on course and headed back down wind again causing the boom to move around a lot which caused me no fun whatsoever working on the lines upstairs. I hope she wasn’t sub-consciously (or consciously for that matter) trying to kill me. The outhaul story will continue tomorrow as it chaffed through shortly after I took over from John at 5am but that story is for day 9. Got to have a little dramatic tension from time to time.
Apart from the little exceptions the days are much the same as the previous. However, as a result of our westward progress, the sun rises and sets ten minutes later each day which brings about a gradual change in eating habits with respect to our shifts. At the beginning of our passage the moon started off close to new giving us a few very dark nights in a row. Now it is growing to quarter moon and, by landfall, full. Each night it sets an hour or so later and becoming brighter each night changing the character of the early evening watches. As it progresses it will shine into each successive watch. Having a full moon at landfall gives us the possibility of a night time landfall if the sky is clear which will make the final two days planning much simpler.
Leave a Reply