Well a good start to the day- my keyboard has responded well to a wash and dry and is working again and the wind’s on the beam so I put up my ‘main’ (aka storm jib) sail and our speed went from 2.5 to 4 knots. Splendid. I need to sort some better lacing for the yard but will do that when it next comes down.
Photos: 1 Jury rig with main and jib. 2 Tiroler Grosl.
A few other things, this morning we’re closer to Ireland than to Newfoundland for the first time. Our day’s run yesterday was 82 miles. A few people are wanting to ‘do things’ to help, it’s difficult to think of anything useful but I thought this might be a good time to mention again that I’m hoping that we may be able to raise some money for the Cowal Hospice, so if anyone is enjoying these blogs, wants to and can afford it, a donation (any amount) to them would be most gratefully received, details are on one of the first one or two blog posts on this site from before I started the run down the Irish Sea.
The Tiroler Grosl was a recipe Katharine kindly sent, me, I’ve not made it before: fry in bacon or salami fat, (or in my case with some added oil because my salami isn’t fatty enough); onions, potatoes, cabbage and bacon (or lardons or salami,) with lots of pepper, when deliciously yummy and slightly crisp on the outside, put on a plate with a fried egg on top. It’s actually best eaten with a Grosse Bier after hard morning’s skiing in the Austrian mountains but also good mid Atlantic.
I had a few questions from the Kilmodan School but stupidly can’t access them whilst typing an e mail so will write another bloggette once I’ve finished this one and answer them there.
We are back in Fulmar territory, I wondered what the difference was, I looked to see if the sea temperature had dropped significantly but it hasn’t, although it has come down a bit. There was also a Common Tern close to us this morning, beautiful birds!
A couple of times last night an alarm sounded, I couldn’t think what it was, but It is an alarm to say that there is a ship in the area. One of the things that we had to fit for the Club that was organising the original race was a ‘Radar Target Enhancer’ an electronic gizmo that makes our ‘blip’ on a radar screen look bigger than we really are, this is because fibreglass boats don’t reflect radar waves well so we often disappear into the clutter of the sea waves. Anyway on the gizmo is an on off button and an alarm on off button, I’d had the alarm off and must have switched it on, so it was alarming to say that it was seeing radar transmissions. It’s actually quite useful, I had a look at the AIS (automatic Identification system - another little device that commercial shipping all have which transmits name, course speed and position to other boats in the area) which showed he was passing well clear astern.
The sea is still quite confused and lumpy but is coming down a bit. Ertan should be due into Horta tonight, he’s not going to Flores because they don’t allow anyone to leave the boat because of Covid, so he wouldn’t be able to get much help with his repairs only top up with food, fuel and water. Guido is in good, favourable winds and so as AJ Wanderlust, last time that I heard in any case. Let’s hope the weather stays helpful to us all.
