maandag 21 november 2011

HeySailing the ocean :-)

Monday, Nov. 21st, 14:30 UTC. Position 26°20.540 N/21°11.360 W

We're 2 days at sea now and are having a great time! The weather is nice, warm and sunny although the cockpit is a good deal of the time in the shade because of the course we steer.
The wind is about 15 to 20 kts which gives a very gentle breeze if you sail down wind :-)

Life on board is starting to get into a rhythm. We do 4 hr watches from 7 pm to 7 am having 2 of us on deck. During the day everybody can steer, sleep, read or whatever else like playing with the spinnaker or sextant.
After lunch we have boat check and do a daily cleaning of the galley, heads and cockpit.

We all cook in turn and the one who's cooking also does the dishes so whatever mess you make, you clean it yourself :-) To prevent dehydration we all have our own water bottle that we have to drink each day.

So far everything works okay although the wind direction meter decided to go his own way. Most of the time it gives a random direction … :-o Instead we now sail on the wind vane at the top of the mast.

It's really nice and peaceful and we very much enjoy the sailing. The motion, the sound of the water  and the boat …. :-) Last night we saw another yacht going the same direction of course, but also a freighter that was going East. Apart from those  two we only see dolphins, not that many so far, but it is always fun to see them.

I guess we'll have to start fishing again in a week or so. By then the fresh meat will have run out or gotten off .. Well, we'll see, we have plenty of other stuff we can eat. So far we've been too busy :-)

PS Mascha and Leonie, Jur did get your text messages on the sat phone