Footnotes from Water Music

As I write this, at 1630 local time, we are sailing along at just under 8 knots in a sparkling sea and a cloudless sky. It has been warm today, without ever being really hot and much of the humidity has gone. It wasnt always like that.

Yesterday afternoon, it got dark at 1500. We never got to enjoy those spectacular sunsets we have had every other night - it was almost like the lights were switched off by the the dark clouds gathering. Then it started raining. Then it continued raining. For good measure it rained torrentially through to just before 2200 last night and, if we had been able to see beyond the ends of our noses (in some cases quite a way), then we could have done all our laundry out in the open air. That would have solved any issue with water that might emerge. At one point it got so wet that the flying fish were landing in the cockpit as there was evidently more water there than in the natural home. Overnight continued dark until almost 0500 and the breeze built as well as a confused sea. Through most of the night we had 15-20 knots of wind, but sometimes up to 30knots. Given we were going downwind, that meant F7 was blowing. To ease the pressure we doubled up on watches in the middle and things started to clear. With the skipper on watch between 0400-0700 he saw lights passing overhead (different from the two sea birds that have been with us since Galapagos) and we reckoned it was probably the space station. Eerie to think that we are in some 3.5m square miles of ocean and, with the exception of probably yachties, the nearest people are probably in the space station.

These are the views expressed by the skipper, which the crew felt unable to verify as they were down below throughout and when they did emerge, the skipper was unable to see them in any event.

This morning the sun came up, much to everyone's pleasant surprise and humour was restored. This was unquestionably helped by hot breakfast and then a gentle morning catching up from last night. At 1200, we checked our position and noon day run - which at 175 Nm for the 24 hours was slightly lower that we thought we might achieve last night - but still way faster than our original planning expected. We should be half way tomorrow.