Ola from Horta

Passing the island of Pico

Festival lights at Ponta Delgada

Saturday morning, main square

The strangest thing in Ponta Delgada - Saturday morning, the imposing Church, busy with lights, the main square, busy with people. A happy scene except that the people were on all fours, mainly women, some weeping, others mumbling something over and over to themselves, many with bloody knees. All looked cold, wet and miserable. A penitence of some kind on the occasion of the festival of Santo Christo do Milagros - Saint Christ of Miracles. It puzzled me why the penitents were almost exclusively women - I don't believe that women are more 'sinful' but are they more inclined to feel the need to repent and if so why? (answers on a post card please)

Pilgrims come from all over the world to honour Sao Miguel's Santo Cristo in thanks for the miracles he has performed. We were hoping we'd be permitted the miracle of sun and warmth but apparently this was not possible. So we set off for the more westerly island of Faial under a cloak of rain. Impulse was in her element with 15 knots of true wind just forward of the beam. Not a bit under pressure she raced along doing 7-9 knots. Passing the island of Pico we were congratulating ourselves, reckoning this would be our fastest passage ever. Inevitably the wind then dropped forcing us to play the hokey cokey with the sail locker.

Now we are in Horta harbour. It's lovely and low key. The rolling hills above the Portuguese townscape have quenched my thirst for green. The chirpy birds have reminded me its Spring and that Devon must be at its best - which is nice given that its almost our next stop.

We are leaving tonight. All being well the wind (plenty of it) will be on our stern. We'll skip along the edge of a low, heading NE, and scoot into the Isles of Scilly to catch our breath. The 1200 miles should take us no more than 2 weeks - but I think I said that once before!

Cut to the chase -

Impy looking smart at Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, Azores

If you just want to know WHERE WE ARE but don't want to trawl through all them posts: WE ARE IN THE AZORES (roughly opposite Portugal but who'd ever believe that? - it's blinkin freezin, honestly I'm not just saying that to be nice - even the bedsocks have been dusted off). More precisely: we are tied onto a pontoon at the marina do Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel. This is not where we wanted to be but hey ho the showers are hot and my bed no longer lurches about like its lashed to the back of a bucking bronco. The town is lovely - cobbled streets, inviting cafes, grand buildings and towering churches. In the square the horse chestnuts are blooming with pretty pink candles. The cakes are good and my painful longing for PG tips (just one bag) has been momentarily arrested because: they grow tea here! I was suprised when first I found out but now, witness as I am to the heavy rain and fog today, it all falls into place. We have taken up residence in the local shopping centre (can you believe it after all those beautifully empty miles of nothing but nature) because 1. it is warm 2. it is dry and 3. you can surf yourself stupid on their wifi whilst sitting in nice leather sofas. Call me shallow...

Giants and Aliens

Day 17 36N 27W
We are in the company of giants. Spray cast up 20 feet, a vast net of water, signals their presence daily now. They are elusive. One evening, in the pearlescent light, we caught sight of a back and dorsal fin - an ash coloured island rising from the deep, then vanishing. Time is arrested. To consider the underworld where these giants dwell inspires wonder. And to think we breathe the very same air.
We can both feel the presence of land now. Like a person entering a room unseen and unheard and yet we know she is there. The horizon's infinite vanishing point cut short. A full stop halfway through a sentence. An interruption. She exerts a powerful magnetism. Since yesterday I find myself standing quite unconsciously looking out to the empty space which soon she will fill. If I thought the world was flat and I was ignorant of worlds beyond this horizon - what freedoms would my mind gain?

Day 18 37N 25W
The day was overcast. The sailing enjoyable, if a bit nippy, on a steady South Easterly and a near flat sea. A large whale crossed our bows a reassuring distance off and a pod of smaller mammals were fishing starboard, at least we think so, judging by the frenzied spray they kicked up. Tonight we leave a glittering ribbon of foam in our wake. Ahead of us the horizon has a green tinged and alien glow - land.

Later: the Azores coastal waters greeted us with lots of wind, a caking drizzle and sentry of vicious rollers, breaking beam onto the boat. No problem for Impulse who, like the escape car in Starsky and Hutch, tilted sideways on her wingtips to skim diagonally across their gnashing crests. We gave the breakwater, with its underwater rubble ('plenty have gone aground'), a wide berth. In with the tiny neckerchief of a headsail. Down with the main, by now unruly and uncooperative (my fingernails hurt this morning from clawing at the luff). We tied on just in time. 18 days at sea and our first gale, but only for five minutes!
We are in Sao Miguel in the SE of the Azores cluster. We are well but tired with brains like BLANCMANGE. (ha!)

Update from Irving

Day 13

30N 28W
Been too tired to want to write, don't fancy it much now but I'll forget if I don't jot it down. Twelve days of sailing and the true wind brings to us twen-tee-hee knots (and a high pressure system in the sector West of here). The dreaded high with it's loathful windlessnes! Even last night we were becalmed again. We'd been sailing well but the stiff breeze came and went like a sneeze. At sunset we dropped the sails. The waxing moon cast a silver tongue over the undulating seascape and at its tip we sat, wallowing. Played chess (Casper winning again - but it took him three hours) and waited. The wind is back but forcing us East which is where we must run, by all accounts, if we are to escape the centre of the high and also avoid a large patch of shallows. We are tired. We are cold. Everything is wrapped in a damp shroud. Everything is salty and salt traps moisture. I could do with a wash. My hair is so dirty I could wring it out and use its oils to fry supper in.
33N 29W
Two weeks its been now. The Westerlies have not come. Today we enjoyed an easy Northeasterly with a near flat sea. A rest after several days of discomfort: cross waves, large rollers and a restless wind. One minute slack sails and the bridgedeck slamming, the next the sheets taut as guitar strings in a vicious 35 knot gust. Just after midnight on the thirteenth day the inner forestay broke loose. The plate connecting it to the forward beam has snapped clean in half. We set out two halliards forward to support the mast in its place. Not a disaster but something to intrude on our long awaited harbour holiday in Horta. We are definitively headed to the Azores now. Which island exactly depends entirely on the winds which are refusing to cooperate with weather predictions of late. Its not so damp now, as we are back in a high pressure system, but the nights are chilled and the duvet has come out of storage. The moon is fat and last night rose behind us like a vast amber disc, casting a long ribbon of light in our wake. The ocean has lost its vivid blue of the lower latitudes but is no less beautiful. When the cloud steals the sun, the brooding ocean turns a pearly grey. When the sun is realeased and shines brightly, without holding back, the ocean becomes an infinite silver carpet.
This morning - a sigh of wind. Barely enough to keep our sails alive. Casper sleeps, enveloped from head to toe in a blanket like a caterpiller in a cocoon. The nights have been cold. But now the naked sun warms the day. I take a salt water shower on deck. The light breeze licks my skin which has been stifled in the same old clothes for far too long. We are down to our last 40 litres of freshwater. I bake, now that the sea is flat and the sun high enough to breathe warmth into the dough. Time is in slow motion. We ghost on. 300 miles remain.

Be calmed and carry on

not a puff...

Day 8, still 25N 27W
Thankgoodness we have a boat that makes way even in light airs. If we didn't, I fear I might have lost Casper to the deep blue yonder. It's just not good for an ex-racing sailor to be becalmed. It's been three days now and (if I think about the distance still to travel) it is all rather tedious and frustrating. Looking at our position on the North Atlantic chart, we have covered 1mm in the last 48 hours, and not even in the right direction. At our current average speed of just over a knot it would take us another 30 days to get to the Azores! Of course my logic brain tells me the wind will come back but it's hard to imagine. If, however, I ignore the chart, the distance to destination and our speed over ground, this is really rather special. Who else gets to holiday in such peaceful and beautiful surroundings? I admit it may not be everybody's tasse de the but my boat it certainly doth float.
Day 9, 27N 28W
No no actually it's day 10 not 9. Somehow lost 24 hours in the lethargic fuzz of these windless days (which seem to have lasted an eternity). Yesterday tempers started to fray. We weren't completely becalmed, no. Instead the breeze chose to toy with us like a boy who plays with a cricket before he rips its legs off. Further North they announce "eight, nine, gale, rain, fog" - the dismemberment that awaits. 'Put us out of our misery! Blow or don't blow'. In the end we took all the cloth down and went on strike. In the cabin, now baking in the heat of the day, I fall in and out of a shallow sleep, my dreams filled with anxiety. Will we have enough water to last the trip? They announce rain further up, just as long as we make it, we can collect it in the bimini. If we see a ship should we ask it to relay a message so no-one thinks we're missing at sea? If they throw us a jerrican of water will it float and, if it won't, how best to get hold of it? We have started 'rationing' fresh water - only to be used for drinking and cooking. All washing is done in saltwater. Annoying as it makes everything feel sticky and gives the cutlery rust spots. As for myself, I'd rather be dirty than itching with salt crystals.
In the late afternoon, some wildlife. A colony of petrels bob along with us several boat lengths away. They are European Storm-Petrels I think, although they look very like several other sub-species: dainty, with a cinder coloured sweep across their wings and a white rump. I thought it could be a Leach's Storm Petrel but the book says that they 'do not follow ships'. Ever since our second day out from the Cape Verdes we've been joined every now and then by a Petrel as well as a White Tailed Tropic Bird (unmistakeable with its tail that makes it look like it's got an unfortunate rod up its jacksie). I haven't seen either since we became becalmed. They must be long gone.
Also this evening: polyps (jellyfish to you and me). All at once the sea's soupy surface is interrupted by little blue balloons, complete with a pink rim and shaped like a pasty. I try to catch one in a bucket but miss - thankfully because I have just identified it as a Portuguese Man of War 'which can have coiled stinging tentacles up to 10m+'. The balloon and its colourful trim act as a sail, enabling it to use both wind and current to propel itself.
The cruel boy scout of a breeze obviously tired of playing with us and moved on to taunt someone else. At about midnight, the real wind returned. Thank the gods! Impulse is chewing through the miles again. Immediately our scowls are gone and the outlook is positive. How easily we are affected by the vaguaries of the ocean! With the screecher up we are reaching on a Southeasterly 3 or so. We are not lost at sea, we are coming home! I am sorry that you worry. There is nothing I can do, two thousand miles away, but send a message on the wind (now returned). 'We are safe, we are safe. Have faith.'
We are flying North on the very breath of the universe, the swell pumping like blood through my veins. Beside me, a wavelet bursts with an effervescent chuckle, taking me by suprise. Little devil - and I thought you were a whale!
Night falls - The wind has decreased and veered West. Mild panic rises. Gloomily we study the chart and weather forecast one more time. Where will the depression go? How far South? Which tack should we choose? Both are rubbish - slow and off the rhumb line. Now look - this one will take us to the band of wind. If it comes. Yes but this one points to all the comforts of Madeira (it looks closer but is in fact the same distance from the Azores, and for that matter the Canaries). If the Westerly doesn't come we should head East - but North Easterlies are forecast for the Canaries sector which would head us off at the pass. But Westerlies are forecast. They are coming. Have faith.

Night Watch

Day 7-8, 25N 27W (still no wind)
The night is dead calm and alive with twinkling stars. They do actually shimmer and twinkle. I wonder why, and how (I know so little). Some come right down to where the sea must start (the horizon is not discernable). Occasionally I think we have company and just then even I shone the torch at one to check it wasn't another boat suprising us 20 metres off. But no, simply a star rising. Ah, the tricks the night can play. We are most totally alone out here in this vast expanse of windlessness. For days we have nursed Impulse through the calm. Coaxing her on. Feeding her limp sails sipfulls of breeze, here and there. She hobbles on through, brave little boat of ours! Wow. So many stars! And what I thought was the Milky Way is but a breath of cloud hanging low. The sky is brighter than the sea although I cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. It must be the stars lightening the sky because the moon set some time ago like a pithless segment of orange held up to a flame.
Later I sit up forward. Phosphorescence tinkles from each bow. The oily ocean is freckled with lights - stars doubled up and more phosphorescence. The Milky Way is clear now, behind that sooty cirrus. I have a strange feeling of disorientation. Where are we headed again? Oh yes. Wherever we can find wind to fill our boots. For a yawning moment there is no North or South to my compass. I am outside myself, time and the linear boudaries of space. Then, ahead, I make out the Big Dipper. That's a demented angle you're lying at son. I think of a shopping trolley falling from a bridge. My mind rattles on, in dialogue with the night. A shooting star scratches the sky. What, I wonder, would it be like to voyage without destination - ever? Another streak of light at the corner of my eye. We are 500 miles from any landfall and going nowhere fast. I have an immesurable sense of space and I am happy beyond belief.

Weird Fish (vegetarians and vegans look away).

Porcupine fish

Day 7, 25N 27W
Sir Robin, we do declare, is full of poo. This morning Impulse's underbelly was teaming with fish. I think they were trying to hide from the big bad pilot whale that was someway off. Things did not go too smoothly for them. To begin at the beginning: I was doing my early morning round of the boat - coiling lines and checking shackles. I reeled in the fishing line (to perform the customary 'unravel' as the wire trace tends to get in such a tangle with the trolling weight). And there, docile as an underwater lamb, is this strange purple creature. Certainly it is fish-like but I immediately have my suspicions. For us to have caught a fish, there must be a hitch... Catching a fish (however peculiar it looked) was such a momentous occasion that I felt certain Casper would want to be woken up. An aside here: sport fishing is a major tourist industry in Senegal and the Gambia and even there we caught nothing in 6 weeks despite trolling most of the time. Indeed, like a shot Casper was on deck just to verify I was not hallucinating and we had in fact caught something. The purple thing was placidly swimming along behind the boat, rather like a brainless dog on a lead, seemingly unphased by the big metal thing in its lip. I couldn't identify the 'fish' in Ian's Sealife book which confimed to me that we should treat it with caution and certainly not kill it to eat. No sooner had I relayed this opinion to Casper, who was now attempting to net the purple freak, than the strangest thing happened. The little fellow began to inflate. Yes inflate - eventually becoming the size of a basketball, but covered in spines. It looked just like the 1970's plastic ballballs my grandfather used to put on the Christmas tree. Except with eyes, a mouth and tail. It even sounded like a ball being blown up - squeeky rubber being stretched. Try as he might Casper could not remove the hook from the freakster's pout (I am more than useless at this time, wailing like a banshee). We had no choice but to let it go still sporting its piercing. Once returned to the sea it floated upside down (surely this was a design fault?). 'Oh dear have we killed it?' I asked. But just then the basketball's tail began to swish and the whole thing slowly shrank and - plop - it disappeared into a ripple of water.
Well we were both pleased the little thing (which it turns out is called a porcupine fish) had survived but my goodness when were we going to catch one we could stick on the barbeque?
Moments later: silver shapes glimmer beneath us. Dorado? Casper catches one pretty quickly, using a mackerelling kit we bought at the post office. Bargain! Indeed, the unmistakable blue fins and yellow scales of a dolphin fish. It's about 70 cm top to toe and we are about to cook it on the barbeque. The little zebra fish, which keeps the dorado company, is still under the boat and every now and then makes an appearence.

Still no wind! 25N 27W

A week at sea it's been like and if things carry on like this it'll be at least double before we get to the Azores! As the crow flies we've got another 700 odd miles to go and have covered 500 - not even halfway. The Canaries lie 500 miles ENE of our position. There is a discernable flutter from the NW but at best all we can make is 2 knots and most often just one. We ran the engines until the fuel tanks were depleted (bar of course the reserve stash) which did mean we had enough power to watch a film. Now there's nought else to do but wait for wind. I just depressed myself by calculating that we've made 5 miles of Northing in the last 12 hours. Oh well, at least we are not in the Southern Ocean being swallowed by huge breakers like Sir Robin is (he has made it to New Zealand and is minus a few tins of sardines). I'm slightly concerned that if we wallow too long down here we'll miss the next depression coming over (with its promise of a steady 15-20 knots going East) and that by the time we get into the windy sector (wherever it blinking is) there will be shed loads of it. Every day bar one of this passage Eastward-bound gales have been announced for the Azores sector. Still, if that happens at least we can turn right and run to Madeira with the weather on the stern. The hydrangeas must be magnificent this time of year!
According to Knoxy the deep blue characteristic of the North Atlantic trade belt, in the windless midst of which we currently find ourselves, is that colour because there is no life here. No plancton and that means no fish. So at least we have an excuse for not catching our supper.

Cape Verdes Onwards: week one!

After 4 days becalmed we are struggling to amuse ourselves...

Very very hot and no shade anywhere but here

Coaxing the asymetric into life

I see no ships

First step North - leaving the Cape Verdes

A much better start to this passage! Indeed we've been treated to a perfect sailing day by good man Neptune! We left Tarrafal a little earlier than expected (gas bottle recovered) as a small high pressure system, with its classic candy floss clouds and gentle winds, sped accross from the Caribbean faster than anticipated. We are hitching a lift on its Northeasterlies in its Southeastern corner. For once our heading is pretty spot on North! We had both almost forgotten the pleasure of passages like this: comfortable and on course. With the weather benign, we are able to relax and continue to credit our bank account of sleep.
Dolphins came to play as we rounded Sao Nicolau to the West this morning wherupon we were met by an enormous lolling swell nonchalently heading South, to Cape Town perhaps for supper.
The sea is again the rich indigo that only the atlantic at these latitudes seems to produce. In the afternoons, the dazzling sun casts half a glittering diamond between us and the solid blue horizon. By evening this is no more than a thin stripe of light, slightly pink. It then disappears altogether as the giant peach of a sun slips behind the vast wall of water, leaving a skyfull of small puffy clouds. The new moon comes up, a slim cuticle of brightness, and the sky slowly fills with a clutch of stars.
Impulse is creaming on through the swell at 4-5 knots which is respectable given that the true wind speed is 3-5. The hatches are open to the cool night air. The oven if full of freshly baked bread. The boat is quiet and sleep comes easily. Perfect.
Our plan is to travel North and slightly West on this high pressure system until we meet a band of variable and very light winds. These will precede our transfer into the South Western sector of a low pressure system, centered around the Azores and moving North East. If we miss this first low, we can cadge a ride on a second which is due to follow several days later. That is the theory at least. In practice so far so good.
Another glorious sailing day. I have been reading the classic voyaging stories of small craft which certainly confirms how lucky we are. Firstly: Clare Francis sailing the Northern route form Plymouth to Newport, US. She wasn't exactly able to don her bikini but instead wore paper knickers whilst she dodged icebergs, suffering freezing fog, frequent gales, a storm 10 with 50 foot waves and an endlessly leaky boat (all this in a one month race). Vito Dumas endured much the same (bar the paper knickers which I don't think anyone had invented then, the 1940's) but at the globe's other extreme. Sailing the 'Roaring Forties' solo he had to contend with gales 80% of the time, frequent bouts of bailing and a sceptic abscess in his arm which, in the end, he was forced to dig out with the end of a marlin spike. Me thinks we have it easy.
We are just beginning to make a small dent in the large quantity of rusty tins of sardines (31 in total) I acquired in the Gambia fearing I may never be able to victual again. I got some stick at the time for this mammouth purchase so I was very pleased to read that Sir Robin Knox Jonson's stores included 24 tins of the slimy critters. "See!" I declared reproachfully "we don't have that many". Casper rightfully pointed out that Sir Robin, with slightly fewer of the fishy items than us, sailed round the entire globe and did it non-stop to boot. Point taken.
I have been dreaming up menus for a half way point celebration meal (sardines anyone?) but the problem is that we don't know where that is as we still haven't decided whether we are going to the Canaries, Madeira or the Azores direct. It all depends how quickly the forecast fronts pass as well as their strength. Every morning we listen to Radio France Inter and cross reference their predictions with the Passage Weather forecast we downloaded in port and which runs for another 6 days. On the basis of these two sources of information we can paint a rough picture of what to expect as we progress North.
Progressing North is rather slow at present. Very little wind but the sea is delightfully flat. We are just managing to keep 2-3 knots of boat speed and therefore avoiding the dreaded flip-flop of an empty mainsail. The night was quiet, we haven't seen anything else since we left Cabo Verde. I decided to leave the helm to Gloria and trust that Impulse would wake me if the anything needed doing - which she did frequently with a flapping sheet here and an unhappy headsail there. We both seem to need a lot of sleep right now and therefore any chance we get is grasped. These calm conditions are ideal for a bit of R&R.
Lots of people have asked us how we organise our watch system. Its simple: whoever is most tired sleeps first. Unless the weather requires us both on deck, after supper we decide which one of us needs to visit the land of nod first. The watch keeper stays on until the early hours, taking a 15 minute nap here and there if his/her head feels too heavy for neck. We use a highly advanced system to ensure that we are not struck by a ship: an eggtimer the shape of a pepper and set to 15 minutes. Why 15? Because, at the maximum speed a ship travels, it would take it 20 minutes to hit us from a position on the horizon. Between 1 and 3 in the morning, depending on how tired each one of us is, we swap over until daybreak. Of course this 'system' changes when the weather is bad when we tend to do shorter watches as they are more demanding both physically and mentally. When its rough we don't sleep in the cabin - down in the hulls it's noisy, you get wet coming on deck and, most importantly, you are just a little too far away if a second pair of hands is required speedily.
Early this morning the wind swung round to SSE and decreased to 2-3 knots. Sailing into it with the screecher close hauled maintained a respectable speed but sent us too far East if we are to catch the Southwesterlies in the area NW of here. The logical sail to don was the asymetric reacher, a lightweight spinnaker which is flexible enough to take the wind from the beam and the stern quarter. It was uncooperative and flew reluctantly before giving up and clinging to the rigging. Not suprising really, there just was too little wind. After a swim and another look at the weather forecast we resolve to motor on NW.
Just now at local noon (16 minutes before the Archers to you and me) the sky looks decidedly different. From my patch of shade immediately under the boom I stretch out an arm. A thumb's width from the horizon lies a heavy band of cumulus cloud. This appears to be moving West. Below it a procession of moustachio shaped cirrus whisks and curls in precisely the opposite direction. It looks like we're on the brink of entering a new weather zone.
On another note I have discovered that although Vito Dumas did not wear paper knickers whilst sailing the 'Roaring Forties' he did wear 'a sack lined with bits of newspaper' (p79). Rock on M&S. And, did you know - creationists look away now - that dolphins evolved from four legged creatures that looked like wolves and are more closely related to hippos than fish? Well I didn't and I'm amazed. Who needs Radio 4 anyway? Oooh, engine's off, must be time to hoist that main again.
Out on deck I find a scowling skipper. The wind has picked up and is coming from dead aft making the ideal sail precisely the one Casper neatly stowed away 15 minutes ago. Anyhow, now it's filling happily. But....
Not for long - back under engine . Feel so much better for a solar shower on deck just before the sun lost its heat. The sky ahead looks grey and menacing (and on the bright side full of wind). Tonight being possibly the last quiet one for a bit we decided to throw a party. Only clean people admitted, wine served and canapes too. Music blasting, we motor on. Chess and perchance a filum later. It feels a bit like last rights - final fling before the weather turns sour.
Indeed as the saying goes - the party's over. In the early hours the wind picked up sufficiently for Casper to set the Screecher and main to gently beat Northwards. I awoke at 4, aware that the sails were no longer happy. The wind had veered South. I set the sails to take the wind at 7 o'clock which gave us a Northwesterly heading. Within 20 minutes the mild night breeze had whipped itself into a shirty 5-6 and we were soon treble reefed. How amazing it feels though to be progressing North with following winds and seas!
Most of today was a little uncomfortable and Casper confessed to feeling a little iffy. This evening though the wind backed NW and halved in strength. We are close hauled again in a force 3. Still the sea follows. Although somewhat uncharacteristically not touched by the dreaded mal de mer, I have been finding it hard to sleep with the boat so noisy again.
My night watch was trying and comical (if only I could have seen it at the time). At about 9, after curry and couscous, Casper went down to sleep in the hull, leaving me with a cup of tea and chapter one of a talking book by Jane Mansfield. I must have nodded off because suddenly Miss Mansfield was on chapter three and I had tea all over my lap. Growling, I mopped up the mess and decided that the boat was feeling sluggish as the wind had decreased. I contemplated putting the Screecher up, waiting a goodly half hour just to make sure the wind wasn't just pretending. After the alotted 30 minutes and no change to the wind I set about hoisting the headsail. Naturally everything takes longer and requires more effort when you are single handing and it took me a good 15 minutes to get the thing set correctly. The boat speed increased by a knot or two - all was well. I was aware that the batteries were a little low as the solar panels hadn't had as much sunshine as they like and Gloria was hungry for power in order to steer downwind accurately on this lumpy sea. A good case for unleashing the water generator I thought. The generator's prop hangs at the end of a stainless leg about a metre long. To get it to run all you have to do is lower the leg until the blades are set in motion by the force of the water. Simple. Well I huffed and puffed over this damn thing for a good 20 minutes. I could get the leg down but it then swivelled slightly so that the blades were no longer square onto the direction of the water. I tried and tried to adjust the little rotter but couldn't. Nothing more to do than take it back up. Just then the wind increased markedly and the pressure of the water against the generator was so great that I couldn't lift the damn thing out anymore. The Screecher was making the unhappy sounds of a sail requiring dousing but I couldn't assist as I was pinned to the water generator, unwilling to let it go for fear that I'd never get it back up again. With my legs akimbo, one hand clasping the leg of the generator and the other outstretched like something out of Inspector Gadget I just managed to reach Gloria's buttons and bore away considerably to slow the boat down. This did the trick and I succeded in tying the generator back up declaring that this was most definately a job pertaining to the blue domain and I would not be doing it again. Now - the Screecher. Of course it refused to furl at first and flapped and flapped in the night air. I didn't fancy my chances of dropping it unfurled without it ending up in the drink. The sheets had disappeared over the side and thus were counteracting my furling action. I pulled them out of the water (at least they weren't stuck round anything) and eventually got the sail down and lashed to the trampoline. Throughout all of this I was wearing a headtorch the front of which kept inexplicably flopping down on the bridge of my nose and blinding me. I got a shoeful of wee when I relieved my self over the davits so as not to wake Casper and managed to whack my head on the entrance to the pod twice as I went to check the apparent wind speed.
Last night's watch was not much better with the wind decreased and the sails lollopping this way and that and Impulse unable to make much Northing. I was incredibly tired which didn't help. Daytime however had given us wonderful sailing weather with a steady breeze from WNW, a gentle sea and a beautiful sunny sky. We spoke to another cat and a tanker on the VHF - our first bit of company (bar two birds) in 5 days. We took full advantage of the comfortable sailing conditions and indulged ourselves: a talking book by Wilber Smith, a freshly baked pizza followed by sponge cake, custard and a game of chess (not such a happy event for me as I lost in 10 moves).
Today, our sixth day of this 1400 mile passage and we are well and truly becalmed. We ran the port engine dry and now are under starboard heading Northwest into that elusive band of wind the forcasters have, annoyingly, been banging on about. The predictions for the last 24 hours have, to date, not materialised. We are making the best of it though, reading, planning fresh adventures and relaxing on the trampoline. We were joined, briefly, by four curious Atlantic Spotted dolphins, beautifully marked as always. Now, an hour before sunset, spokes of light hang from an ominous cloud above a motionless sea. Ominous and perhaps filled with wind?