Nearly almost halfway Canaries to Martinique
Catmojo
Matt
Sat 28 Nov 2020 05:36
Cog 250 Sog 6-7knots, distance to Martinique wpt 1655nm so we've done just over 1100 nm in almost 6 days. Wind is down to 12-15knots from ENE. Fabulous clear moonlight skies overnight and gentle sea 1.5 ish metres, full moon due over next two nights and the moon stays up the whole night. Fifth full day (and night) with Ahab the pirate parasailor/spinnaker dragging us south and west.
Birthday Ruth was very pleased with our flag-bunting efforts all afluttering in the cockpit yesterday. She confided that for one hot moment she thought that the mast had fallen down, so we'd had to put the flags in the cockpit. I will treasure her fleeting notion that should the mast ever come down then the most pressing issue would be just WHERE are we gonna put the flags now, hm? In the cockpit, obviously.
The Mermaid outfit was a hit, and much fun at all the subterfuge that went into hiding it from her in LP. The outfit comprises a monofin (essentially a wide flipper with two feet-holes in it) and then a lycra legging that covers the fin and all the way up to the waist, plus a bikini, all in fish-scaly rainbow pattern. It's been a bit overcast for pix today, but she's tentatively agreed to try get a spoof of the classic ARC-style cockpit pic of a just-landed fish/mermaid.
Ruth sounds a bit clueless about the butterfly leg-kick needed to get moving in a monofin. Disney animated films (for example) haven't shown this as clearly to recent generations as the now-ancient Man From Atlantis TV series did, so she might need lessons in Martinique. As a swimming instructor years ago I could just tell kids to make like Man From Atlantis and they could all do a butterfly leg-kick straightaway. Oh well.
In other news there was sunbathing in the afternoon, Jess made burritos, Aixa made cheesecake with special birthday candles in the shape of 2 and 7, and Chipi had to deal with more Raymarine chartplottter madness at 0030 - three times now it's gone crazy and shown speeds of 150knots in wild directions and needs the on.off treatment. But the autopilot holds solid on windvane mode which we're using at 160stbd to force up the apparent wind and I have at least two GPS backup systems, so the chartplotter isn't critical.
Looks like it will be a slower second week than the first half of the trip - usually it's the other way around on this route, but we'll see.
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