Freebird Atlantic

They are like London buses and as difficult to wave down. Twice in the middle of the night we have encountered the Talisker Rowers nearby.  Late last night it was The Wolf, and just now before sunrise we can see Men of Oar on the AIS about 4 miles away.  Both boats are travelling at 2.3 knots, so they must be rowing, and we guess they could see our masthead light. On each occasion we have tried to contact them on the VHF, and send them a DSC message,  but no response.  We even left our VHF on so they could contact us.  The dilemma is that they are so small that they only appear on the AIS when a few miles away and they always seem to be downwind from us. To sail up to them would involve jibing which in the night with a cat's cradle of knitting is not easy, and would involve rousing all our sleeping crew. Even if we could sail up to them, in the pitch dark and in a big sea we would have to be careful not to get too close, so shouting across the high seas is not that productive.  However we have wanted to make contact with each of them to check they are OK and give them encouragement during this unbelievably gruesome challenge they have undertaken.

We have not seen a single ship, even on the AIS, since leaving the Canaries, with the exception of Watermusic 5 days ago and now 4 rowers.  So they also won't have seen anything for weeks either since they left on 10th December.  I am sure a friendly voice on the VHF nearby must be a huge boost.  We noted that Kraken, who we saw 2 days ago, was travelling at 0.9 knots, and we assume he must have been drifting while taking a rest as he is a solo rower.

After 2 days of light wind, we were relieved that the wind picked up to F4 and we are having a rollicking good sail, goose-winged. It is more rolly this morning, with a swell of 3 metres.

There was huge excitement yesterday. We caught 2 more Mahi Mahi, one landed by me, and the second by William - firsts for both of us.  Annoyingly his was larger than mine, but actually I was quite relieved.  It is hard work reeling in a large fish when travelling at 6-7 knots through the water.  I am trying to think of different ways to cook Mahi Mahi... baked, in a curry, fish stew, fish pie.. The crew are not complaining as they know the alternative is pheasant casserole. We are hoping our next catch might be tuna for some sashimi.

Henry has been occupied with his sextant, and was feeling very smug yesterday as he calculated that we were within half a mile of his calculation, having taken a fix on Venus.  What a triumph, as his first attempt was a not v reassuring 300 miles out.  He has a wonderfully precise contraption to measure the angle between various stars and the horizon (Heath Robinson eat your heart out).  He then pores over pages of tables and makes endless complicated calculations which seem gobbledigoo to me, but it keeps him quiet and very happy.  More importantly it leaves us in awe of mariners who relied entirely on this method, and it humbles us to realise just how relatively easy navigation is nowadays.

The skipper committed the ultimate crime yesterday at lunch.  He was sitting on the upwind side.  He tossed out some cheese rind, took careful aim for the sea and missed.  The cheese landed inside the boom, never to be retrieved.  Oops.  We were so glad it was none of the rest of us, as we would have been keel hauled.  Not sure what the punishment is for the skipper.  All ideas welcome.