A Visit from the Flying Squad
Sailing with two crew for long passages is about settling into routines, most notably at night. We tend to work on 3 hour watches, one person on deck and one asleep below. Last night about 0130, I was in the cockpit reading my Kindle when I got thumped on the leg, followed by a lot of flapping. By the noise, I assumed a bird had made a bad landing, and reached for the torch to assess the situation. No, it was a flying fish that had managed to clear about 4-5 feet of hull and coaming just to assault me!
Crossing the threshold of 1,000nm to go seemed a major milestone. Not sure why, but it made the destination much closer, and as we reduce that by each 100nm, the measure becomes the number of days before we reach land. As I write this, there are about 750nm to St Lucia, probably about 5 days at the present rate. For the last 4 days, we have had strong favorable winds (Force 6/7) making for about 7 knots (nautical miles per hour) average, with big seas. Sailing with just a reefed headsail still makes for rapid progress.
There was a possible sighting of another boat last night, the first one for a week.
Fantastic to hear you’ve got some wind. Are flying fish edible?! Hope so if they’re throwing themselves at you.
As always, loving reading your posts from the middle of the Atlantic, keep them coming.
Rob
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Steve, I think I would be quite pleased to be awakened by a flying fish. Great progress. Love to see your pics at the end of all this
R T
Sent from my iPhone
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So good to have news of you – so glad that you are now making good progress and continue to pray for you. Flying fish story terribly funny! You should write a book called one man and his wife on the high seas! Much love to you both Cherry xxx
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