Footnotes from Water Music

When we last completed a blog, we were looking for some wind to get some respite from the mirror flat seas we were experiencing. We found it!

Shortly after going off watch at 0200, a front came through very quickly and the wind built from almost nothing to 25 knots with a sea running for the first time since we left Fiji. With all sails duly reefed, I got back into my bunk to find that Alistair had hooked a large tuna. That was exactly
what we needed - however dispatching, gutting, skinning and filetting the fish as we bounced along was quite challenging.

We were then looking forward to fresh fish for lunch (ceviche) and then for supper. Sadly it was not to be as our diet then fell to two days of Cup-a-Soup as it was too rough to do anything else. Over the rest of that day, the wind steadily built to about 30 knots - which we sustained through
the night (with one period of winds from 35-27 knots) and the seas built to about 4m. This felt like it was going to put a huge strain on our weakened backstay and the mainsail that we knew was on its last legs. Fortunately that all held and the autopilot held us to the course we asked
without any sort of grumble or murmur. To compound matters, the wind came in from the S and so it was very cold and meant that we couldnt sail anything like in the direction we wanted to take. After a while the dodger came up - which provided some protection. To give an indication of
the strength of some of the wind, we had a wave break over the bows, which brought green water (sadly it is no longer deep blue) back to the cockpit and the dodger took the brunt of this wave - which was by now about 2 feet deep. Not surprisingly, the stitching failed on the dodger and
we just had to hope that the material would hold.

By this stage, the small infection on Grace's wrist had inflamed and she was digging into the supplies of anti-biotics we have on the boat. From then on Alistair & I did 2 hour watches overnight as it was just too cold to be up for much longer.

Eventually we started to get into some lee of the N Island and the winds started to veer round to the South West and the seas eased. This meant that about 0100 yesterday morning we were finally able to point at our destination. That was a huge relief and as the sun started to rise the
temperature started to go up and we got freed some more. We ended up with the most glorious sail in growing daylight down this memorable coast. It was a truly fitting end to an amazing trip, during which time we have sailed over 15,300 miles since leaving Lanzareote.

We had arrived and, in spite of the challenges of the boat, we were in one piece. Nothing had broken on the passage down - which given some of the severe pounding we received is remarkable and our mainsail can now finally go off to be recycled - or whatever you do with an old sail
that is in too poor condition to make into a bag!

Customs into was pretty straightforward and we were on our dock by lunchtime. Grace went to see the doctor in the afternoon and has been given a sling, but the antibiotics are now working and we we are now looking forward to doing some exploring of the island. We may get a game of
golf in - but first things are to work out where we find a television for tomorrow's big game.