Tuesday Blog

Position 020615 0400 hrs GMT
30°18' N, 61°37' W
Wind SE 3 knots
Course 04
Boat speed 7.2 knots

Following an operator's error (pushing button order wrong), our draft blog of yesterday disappeared from Grey Power's computer. However, Robin rescued the situation by sending one out live around midnight last night (ship's

time) to ensure you all had fresh news.

So what happened on Sunday? As you would expect, our Sunday started with a sermon from our Captain, preached from his Harken winch grinder to the assembled crew who had turned out in their Sunday's best to eagerly listen to the words of wisdom of their leader. Apparently, we are reliably informed that it was based on Matthew Chapter 7 verses 1 to 7.  Why beholdest the bede in thy brothers eye and not the mote in thine own eye.

It was a basic lecture about not being critical of the skipper!

After such an invigorating speech, a special breakfast consisting of our last eggs was served up. Thereafter the rest of the morning was spent avoiding the intense heat of the sun.

I am pleased to report that cigarette inventory remained on track as a result of outstanding self control from the crew. The tea bags currently remain safe as Grey Power's pace remains in sync with the rate of consumption. We are now concerned that we may run short of vitamin C as we are down to our last lemon. We hope that this will not affect adversely the health of the crew. Pickling the lemons has been used for the last 48 hours to extend their shelf life and maximise the extraction of goodness.

After the heat of the day, we were rewarded with a heavy rain shower (which continued into the night) but enabled all to have a hair wash with varying types of shampoo (crew = shower gel; captain = upmarket fairy liquid!)

The night of Sunday to Monday was largely uneventful with reasonable progress although an autopilot malfunction was experienced during the later part of the night. Dilip ending up hand steering for a significant time but

this was remedied by Robin switching to the backup gyro compass. So all back up and running...

Our plan established on Sunday night was to rendez-vous over coffee at 5 am Monday morning and during this conference, it was decided that we would not gybe as anticipated as the weather information received from Simon

indicates a better solution continuing as we presently are albeit at some point we will need to turn towards Bermuda or risk missing the island all together.

The discovery of the remains of a birds nest in the boom incensed the skipper. He thundered about loving birds but not when they nested in his blankety boom. The odd flying fish has appeared on deck but none worth cooking so far.

After the afternoon heat, we gybed on a wind shift to try and close the gap to the island. This resulted in a wonderful few hours of downwind sailing. Robin used the flat water and the steadyness of Grey Power to climb the mast twice to lash the staysail and jib to the furlers. We are hence now able to roll furl our headsails. In celebration of this, a good bottle was sought from the freeze dried reserve locker!!!

Other than than that, Joshua has decided that he can cook Italian food, Francesca might (probably will) have a different opinion.  Dilip and Robin decided that in order to protect their taste buds a bottle of Chianti should be

opened as a safeguard.

Post dinner Joshua has been awarded the bage of Italian Cooking (Pasta only)

Third class!!!!