Namibia to St. Helena Day 8
18 June 2011 | South Atlantic
Paul
We've heard the blog is back up & running, good news. Evidentially Sailblogs was doing "maintenance" and thanks to all who alerted us to the issue. We did not receive a confirmation from Sailblogs for our Day 7 posting so we've reposted it and it should be available for all to see.
Another grey day on Saturday for us but there was continued wind :) We're still sailing under spinnaker and doing 7 to 8 knot averages with slightly larger following seas of 3-4' Wind speed is also higher now, in the range of 14-16 knots.
Derek proved to be the sharpest eyes onboard as he picked out St. Helena rising up out of the horizon at 42 miles out!
We were all surprised to see the island so far out, particularly as today is so grey and overcast. In the tropics one can sometimes pick up islands even further out as an island often has a cloud hanging over it and you are seeing it under sunnier conditions. But for the Safari crew we're currently sailing in a mono chromatic world: grey skies, diffused light and steely grey/blue Atlantic swells rolling by. About the brightest thing we look at regularly is our red/white/blue spinnaker! And we've been keeping an eagle eye on it lately as the winds have been primarily from dead astern us and have shifted regularly from our port quarter to our starboard quarter. For all those non sailors out there, this means one has to be vigilant to adjust the sail or boats' direction in order to prevent the spinnaker collapsing upon itself or wrapping around the head stay of the boat. And a wrapped spinnaker at night is no fun!!
More good news today and that is we've managed to catch something other than bonito! Landed two mahi mahi (one 23", one 24") and they've been filleted and are awaiting the BBQ tonight! We've some wasabi onboard as well so we'll have some fresh sushi as well, yum.
With any luck and if the winds continue, we'll make landfall at St. Helena before sunset today!