Well, yesterday continued fine most of the day, it was lovely sitting up in the cockpit again and not having to hold on all the time. The wind was against us but we were making 5-6 knots most of the day. Now that we’re closer to land we’re seeing Gannets and Fulmars quite a lot.
We had a little target on our AIS (Automatic Identification System - a gps/ vhf navigation device that tells boats about each other) and couldn’t see it, our CPA (closest position of approach) was less than half a mile. Eventually a couple of buoys turned up. I suspect that it was one end of a drift net, we worried about the net being on the surface and Hunter went to the bow to peer into the water as we passed it but there was nothing to see. We passed another one about an hour later, possibly the other end of the same net.
Towards the end of the afternoon a trawler appeared o the AIS and we ended up passing him at about a quarter of a mile, and fog came down for a few minutes but didn’t linger. We managed to sail until 2300 in a dying wind but then, with only about 5 knots of breeze put the motor on and have been motoring since. It’s a dreich morning with a watery sun, I’m hoping it’ll burn off the gloom as it heats up. Hopefully we’ll pick up a breeze later as we don’t have enough fuel to motor all the way home from here. The fore cast, from last night seems to think we’ll have wind from tomorrow so; fingers crossed.
Yesterday, to noon, we covered 121 miles, the lowest so far and only ended up 80 miles closer to home.
If we can make 5 kts average from here we should be home on 22nd in the evening.
Slainte
Jock, Patrick, Hunter and Yemaya.
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