Thursday’s Blog by David  27 50.3N 17 15.8W

So – at sea at last, en route for Sal, Cape Verdes. Bowling along at 7.5-8.0 knots under staysail and deep reefed main, blue sky hot sun – and all is well with the world. 750 miles to run so four and a half to five days if the wind holds. So arrive sometime  Tuesday.

Our new sail plan works well if the wind is behind …… and  behind it was - at first. We had several goes at setting the rig without any evident signs of chafe but did eventually settle on something that seemed to make sense.  So we ran along happily until the wind went inevitably forward and we had to set the current rig. We are content – it is Happy Hour again.

Musings of an Artist…….

From time to time in my life I have been dogged by the colour green.  Badly advised, on my first day’s work  in the City at Arthur Andersen in 1976, I arrived  at Worship Street in a light green three piece suit with a green tie and brown shoes  (sic!) to be given a matching green waxed box to contain the books and binders that were the benefits of a new employment. Green has since featured on the golf course, in sailing (starboard) and so on - we even live in Upper Green - but this is a story of green paint.

It is customary in some ports for voyagers to leave a record of their passage.  It would be an easy mistake to think this a reference to the bowels, but in fact in many ports around the world,  such as Azores, Madeira and some Canarian ports, it is normal to paint the ship's logo on the harbour wall as a sign to other voyagers – friends and foe alike – that you had passed by this way.

Now, San Miguel is a new marina (thanks to you all for your contributions to its construction through your taxes via the EU) and that practice is not yet established there - indeed it is fair to say that the walls are pristine.  We (well, I) concluded that rather than ask permission  to leave our mark, it would be better to apologise afterwards if asked. However, given that this was to be our maiden mark, we sought a spot which was  away from all the normal traffic. We chose a spot on the outside of the harbour wall.   Having risked life and limb to get there, it is well concealed from the casual observer – and indeed for those who look hard:

………eerrr… it is in the middle!

It was a three part process – a white back ground, the green frog and then the finishing touches. Working on the rock face in the half light of dawn, it was the green stage that was the problem.  It was a particularly fluid paint which – because it was painted on  a vertical-ish face – ran everywhere, By the time, it was finished, most things around us were covered in green paint… as was I!   But worse, when we cleared up and took the remaining paint back to the boat in a carrier bag, the lid fell off. The paint formed a green puddle in the bottom of the bag which  - because there were  holes in the bottom - dripped green paint on the ground (so marking out the trail to the boat) and all over my shoes.  I found a bin for the paint on the way but by the time I was back at the boat every part of me was green – as by now were parts of the boat and some of the crew!

It took forever to clean me, the brushes my clothes and the boat and there are still spots of green paint around today.  To say that this experience, combined with the rather tricky rock climbing that was necessary to get to the site of our masterwork, somewhat daunted our artistic enthusiasm is an understatement. However, following happy hour that evening we found our resolved restored and reinforced and so ventured back to the rock.

Now, at this stage I should make clear that this was our first attempt at a  representation of Serendipity  -- which you will remember looks thus:

By the time we had interpreted the image in a way that we considered best suited the conditions, and the materials available there were some noticeable differences. One other thing that is noticeable is my complete inability to plan a layout.

Anyway, the budding Banksy was finally caught on camera alongside the first Mark 1 artistic  representation thus:

On reflection, perhaps I shouldn’t have given up my day job!