DAY 13 TRANSATLANTIC CANARIES TO CARIBBEAN
16 December 2009 | nearly halfway
Yahoo...we have wind
The boats that left Las Palmas a week ahead of us have Barbados in sight and will arrive sometime tonight I think. Very exciting for them, very depressing for us but we soldier on. While they've enjoyed 20 knots of wind, we've been floating around in Lake Wakapoohoo twiddling our thumbs. That is until about two hours ago when the wind came up from the south west (not really the direction we prefer) and we've been sailing northeasterly for the last few hours. We're now turning our noses south to try and get below 16 degrees north which is where Herb reckons we should pick up the northerlies and south-easterlies. Nice to be on the move at least, even if we're tacking. At least when we're motoring throughout the nights we can make water and have hot showers, not that the hot showers are necessary now that it's warming up considerably. We're shifting time zones of course as we travel and dawn in now at 8am UTC. I think we have to wind our clocks back about 5 or 6 hours for the Caribbean but we haven't done so yet. A fishing update....as Sam was reeling in the line last night, a tuna took his lure about a foot from the bottom step. Very exciting. When he looked down into the water we were amidst a school of them. He cast in again and caught quite a small one so we threw him back. Had wonderful fishcakes for dinner. Then today we landed another Mahi Mahi so we've really been spoilt with lovely fresh fish for the past few days and I haven't had to dig into the freezer for anything much lately. Milo had a meeting of the minds with another dolphin pod this morning when he and I were on the dawn watch. It was still dark and I got quite a start when one emptied his blow hole right beside us but Milo was up on the nose in no time squealling and groaning at them. I wonder what he's saying?