Different kinda High

At home we think of High’s as light breezes, flowers, honey bees, barbeques and days on the beach…let us introduce you to an Azores High! There is good reason that it’s stable at 1032mb it’s powerful. Today’s new issue consisted of a drawer under the chart table which holds heavy tools smashing it’s plastic latch and launching into the saloon. We redistributed the heavy stuff, took a latch from a cabinet elsewhere and managed to close it again so we can still get to the forward part of the ship! Close reaching all day in 18-22kn SSE wind at 7.5

Pinball Wizard (Day 8)

‘There’s got to be a trick, how do you think he does it….sure plays a mean pinball’ Awoke to an overcast sky, first in ages, and a radar screen smattered with squalls, probably about eight at any time. As we edged the front of each squall we were catapulted to 8 knots, shot across the face and out the other side, then wallowed in a turbulent sea making about 3 knots until we crossed the next when again we were pinged forward. And so it continued for around 3 hours, ping, ca-ching, prrrrt, ching – we were the pinball. Come

It’ll be Christmas….

Crossing an ocean at 4 knots made me think ‘well what if we’re here for Christmas?’ Mmmm let’s have a look at our provisions? We have Christmas Pudding (yay!), cream (whooo!), red wine (waheey!) and brandy (weeey!), roast potatoes (yippeey!), peas and carrots (yeey!), no bread sauce (booo!), no sausages (boooo!), no Queens speech (hoooraay!), no raiders of the lost ark number 17 (hoooraay!), and we have turkey (yeeeehhheeey!) Hang on, turkey? Use by date mid June (booooo!). So instead of the odd plastic bucket floating past we need to find a turkey and a string of sausages….closest substitute available

Boomerang (Day 6)

At about 9am a swell appeared which has to an extent broken our ‘in a marina without shorepower’ type feel to our world and we started a little rolling and yawing. 11am pulled in a bit of wind 8-10kn SW and we set full sail. During this time we decided to check out the clew, tighten the line fastening the sail to the aft of the boom roller, and as it was a touch frayed, work in a second 10mm line. The 10kn wind gave us about 5kn SOG for 5 hours then died again. At least we got a

Day 5; Ocean Snailing & Never seen so much of nuffin!

Clearly we need to start an Ocean Snailing Club as wind remains 3 to 6 knots and we crawl along under power making about 100nm a day. Could be there’s a little wind for 12 hours or so on Saturday but that’s about it. The sky has been crystal clear and panning 360 degrees on a searingly hot deck one can stare straight at the razor sharp edges of the horizon in any direction. No haze, no squalls, none of the fade out to a white blur. Just a sharp blue line. And I’ve never seen so many miles, mile

Log out, or leave it?

Seemed our log was running slowly and we have passed many clumps of weed so putting two and two together some strands must be caught round the impellor? Do you take the speed log out of the hull to have a look when you are several hundred miles offshore? I pondered this a while and then decided that the log was important as it’s speed readings determine auto-pilot response rates, sail trim and still forms a useful cross check on progress. So out came the log from it’s through-hull fitting and I could see the bright green water rushing by

Another horse, Cap’n?

Aye Aye Jim…and so it is hundreds of years later. No change. We are out of the trade winds and into The Variables, The Horse Latitudes, so named because the galleons full of livestock would be running out of water in the calms and to save on consumption would throw another horse over the rail. Sharks trailed the galleons and eventually a law was passed requiring that the horse be shot first before being flung to the feeding frenzy below. Wind currently South circa 5-7kn and at 11 pm we were making under 0.5kn so we are back on the

Day 4 Bolt Out of the Blue

Heading 020/030 at about 5kn in a flat sea; another beautiful day gliding along although hardly closing the Azores. Suddenly I noticed a piece of plastic by the mid-ship cleat. Picking it up it looked like a piece of sheave so out came the binoculars to pan round the mast head. Can’t see anything amiss. Puzzling, what did fall out of the sky 3 days ago? Minutes later….and there it was. A bolt, one of four, fastening the vang to the boom had sheared and it was the bolt head that had fallen on the doghouse window. Looks like an

The Dog’s Leg

To sum up day’s 1,2 and 3 we have been navigating to wind on a close reach resulting in courses of 020, 040 and more recently 000. With so much north in our course we close the Azores by about 15 or 20 miles a day. The boat loves close reaching. Initially we were in the trades and stonking along at 7.5kn but more recently we have been gliding at about 3.5 to 6kn on a flat blue sea under clear skies in about 10kn wind with a small swell. Below deck it’s 34 deg C during the day but

Oh no, the sea!

Left St Martin on the 08030 bridge somehow! Things were thrown in lockers, lashed to tables and what didn’t find a home ended up inside the washing machine for re-discovery sometime in the future. At the bridge the news regarding Cheeki Rafiki was acknowledged and it’s hit the sailing community hard. We offer our condolences to all family and friends. Queueing at the bridge was amusing. A large Swan wanted to rush out to get to a race start a few miles away and asked if he could slot in ahead of us; as if the minutes mattered to our

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