Bo’s’un bird

Well we had a fine night doing 7 knots or so but still rolling around quite a lot, it’s a fairly jerky roll which, it could be said, is not the most comfortable. On account of the movement I thought I’d do a simple dinner of bubble and squeak with salami for flavour and a fried egg, it all worked fine but ended up not all that simple in terms of pots and pans etc. The boys between them knew that the frying pan was stowed under the cooker but opted for putting it directly under the cooker rather than in the locker under the cooker, this meant that the cooker could no longer swing with the ship’s roll however it didn’t lead to any upsets. We’d had those already with the coffee pot going flying, a glass of red doing similar and some glasses jumping out of their neat round stowage holes to break in the glass locker. That was probably my fault for having said I’d rather have the odd breakage than drink from plastic glasses.

We had a bo’s’un  bird, or tropic bird following us yesterday which was a fine sight I remember Daddy commenting on them in his talk in Bold Journey, with their tails resembling a marline spike.

It’s possible I didn’t make clear that we are not on short water rations, we have about 200 ltrs left in one tank and 400 in the other still. We didn’t lose any and all is working as normal.

We had another yacht in sight yesterday and on the AIS, Skye, we think we’re going faster than she is so she’s off astern to the South now.

I’m typing this into the email program having remembered that if I turn the ipad 90 degrees when the disappearing paper reaches the top it reappears again, and doesn’t have the 6 second delay for each key stroke so. In some ways is easier and in others more tricky,  I am also now remembering that the paper doesn’t get bigger so there’ll be a limit to what I can write before it becomes really annoying again.

We’ve been wondering whether we may catch up and or see any of the people rowing the Atlantic, so far we haven’t.

Yesterday’s day’s run was 173 and we’re currently down to 1360 miles  to run to St Maarten and I suspect we’ll have a similar day’s run today.

After lunch yesterday we stowed the staysail and poled out the genoa to port, or downwind, and this increased the speed a little, and the rolling. We had some short spells at 10 knots but mostly doing between 6 and 8, we’re hoping the sea may reduce more to reduce the rolling but I suspect not.

Sue kindly sent me away with some music on an mp3 usb stick which might work on the boat’s radio, unfortunately I’m temporarily uncertain of it’s location and the hunt continues.

Alastair bought a  case of small water in bottles, there’s on going amusement between Alastair and Stephen as to whose is which, Alastair maintains that his has a dent, unfortunately, with the movement dents are all over the place on all the bottles. I’m drinking out of an old tonic water bottle(but mostly tea from a mug) but can at least identify which is mine.

Reference Alastair’s slanderous blog: He has, to himself, an ensuite (well - ish) loo / shower  off his private cabin forward which is sumptuously furnished with a double bed, but the poor prince is a little concerned with noises and motion and having slept in the smaller bunk in my cabin has now taken up residence in the walk through cabin along with his wellies, sailing shoes and other paraphernalia where he snores through the night waking up briefly to write slanderous notes on his telephone complaining about me having to sleep in the biggest berth aboard which is, obviously, jolly hard work on my part and not generally appreciated as it should be.

It’s looking like today’s run will be a little disappointing at about 166 miles, it’s strange because so often we seemed to be doing 8 knots that one hopes that the day’s run is going to be close to a record but, obviously not.

Well slainte for now,, I’ll be having a quiet snooze this afternoon in my palace aft.

Jock and the boys.