two up is much different from sailing three.Not much time for chit
chat,just eat,sleep and watch,four hours on four hours off.We are
getting used to this new schedule,adapting as we have to.we do miss our
third crewmember Pieter immensily,and we hope to hear from him later
today re his medical condition.Just received excellent news from
Nicky,our lady in the office in Cape Town.She has once again done the
impossible and sourced a crewmember from Germany.She will fly him in a
day or two before we arrive at our next landfall.It could be Cadiz,but
if the weather is good for us,Brad and myself will run through the
Straits of Gibraltar and meet him on the other side.Yay yay yay.Thanks
Nix!!!I don't say for nothing that we work with the best in the
industry,as it has once again be proven.If she only had us to deal with
it would have been amazing already,but she has a whole fleet of boats
and crews and their predicaments to deal with.You're simply the best.
The weather out here is fairly rough at the moment and we expect it to
stay with us till tomorrow night.The waves that we are sailing into is
probably about three meters high and we are making steady
progress,taking it one wave at a time,time after time.The weather
predicted will push us a bit east,then a bit southeast and finally we
will be able to curve up as the weather will start coming from the south
east in the next few days.Extreme weather is expected in the
Gibraltar/Cadiz area from the 5th to the 8th of April,so no use for us
to hurry along.We are only 380nm from Gibraltar and will time our
arrival for the 9th or 10th when things have calmed down considerably.
A lot of dolphins playing around the boat but no change for us to go to
the bow and blow them kisses.We will spend most of the time suspended in
the air and getting wetdangerous and cold.When we need to do some work
on the bow we turn on a broad reach,the wind from nearly behind if you
don't know what broad reach is,hold on to the stay jack or life line we
have running from the back to the front of the boat,do what we need to
do,get back and turn into the wind again.A chilly 16*C and we are
dressed accordingly.The country veg stew I made last night filled us
nicely and warmly,and we have some left for lunch.I just heated some and
enjoyed it thoroughly,again.Do you also find that things like pasta and
stew taste better the next day?
There is also a lot more ships around.On my 2 to 6 watch this morning I
saw five ships,fortunately all some distance away from us.With the
rougher conditions we have our nav lights on as well as our anchor
light,just to make sure they see us.We are mostly sailing on a close
reach and I wonder if you can figure out where the wind comes from
then.First prize for guessing it right could be a little seatrial on a
new boat in the Cape of Storms...ha ha ha.We are running the motors one
at a time every now and the to keep the batteries charged.Not much else
to say today except that our position was 33*12'W/13*04'N at AM 09:00
UTC.We are 1730nm from Greece and as I said,only 380nm from
Gibraltar.the wind is gusting now at 30 kts and we just furled in the
genoa a little more,having gone on a broad reach to execute this
exercise without undue strain on the rigging,the sails,the winches,the
"ropes" or ourselves.
Hope you have a good one and I hear that winter is setting in around
South Africa.Normally winter sets in around Cape Town just after the
Easter weekend,but the first signs are there.
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