Flying Squid Captain!
Monday 31 August
David found some black marks on the deck and went to investigate. We have squid on the deck!
We got Lily up again which is much more comfortable than goose wing now the wind is down to a consistent 12 knots. Our boat speed is averaging about 6 knots.
We haven’t used the motor for a long time now and it’s lovely to have enough wind to sail. Greta is doing most of the helming and she’s doing a grand job. There’s also more cloud cover today which suits me!
We keep track on the huge behemoths that steam over these parts, checking if our bearing to them is going up or down so they will go ahead of us.
We have a tracker on our boat and friends and family are keeping an eye on our progress, especially as the blog has dried up! If you want to track where La Bamba is in real time here’s the link: https://my.yb.tl/LaBamba
I am a lot better today as I finally managed some sleep, but as we will be in Santa Ana tomorrow and I’m still tired I have decided to enjoy the sailing and do the blog when I get there.
For the ARC I think there may be a blog delay around days 3-5 but I am confident I will adapt and learn to sleep!
We have sadly found that the strop that Lily winds around has a badly worn kink in it which looks dangerous as we don’t want it snapping with David on the foredeck. So we won’t be flying her again until we get it replaced. Saunders sails have already replied and Lanzarote yards seem hopeful too.
The other problem we have found is the attachment of the vang (or kicker) is wearing and making a nasty noise too, David and Will have done a temporary fix but we need to get a remedy before we cross the Atlantic.
We have already had to redo our goose neck on the mast, which was not strong enough. We think that because we have our lovely big boom, Arcona didn’t take enough account of this with the rigging.
We are all tired but morale is high, Will made some sandwiches and David did pasta and gnocchi for dinner.
Last night shift – we have been blessed by beautiful stars with the Milky Way very noticeable – and phosphorescence in the water where La Bamba ploughs her furrow in the ocean. Then the moon comes out shining sliver all over the ocean and giving us X-rays of the clouds. The balmy night breeze is also delightful.
Only 80 miles to go!