Thursday 31st starts off boring grey and windy and becomes distinctly more unpleasant when the wind decides to drop in strength and go round in circles. The sky lowers to the sea so we are enveloped in grey drizzle. The waves stay huge and confused so we are thrown around without the benefit of a consistent wind to stabilise us and hold us upright. Our sails slat and crash around uselessly and poor old Betty the Beta is called up for a long slog of duty. So much has spilt in the cool box fridge thingy that a total empty out and disenfecting session is called for. A pain in the butt at zero heel, but at an irregular +/-30 degree fling, the job calls for patience.
As for progress, the current slow boring grey lumpy damp conditions are expected to last another 36 hours!
Note that at sea, we only use the radio spasmodically as there are only certain times when propagation for digital data is possible. When transmitting, we need to have both crew up, the engine running, and one of us on the wheel. Usually David has to extend his watch to do the steering, as Mike is the radio comms person. The engine has to be used because digital data transmissions use 100% full power continuously. Transmission can also cause much interference to navigation and autohelm systems. Finding and establishing contact with a sailmail base station in range and which is not busy can also take ages.
Progress has been disappointingly slow so far, but we will shortly be 1 month and over 3000 miles from St Barts, with 6 or 7 days left to go to the Fastnet Rock off SW Ireland.
M&D on R
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