Furry Flies or Flying Fur?
Where Next?
Bob Williams
Mon 28 Sep 2009 12:56
Course: Southwest, Speed: 4.5 knots
Wind: North nor west, gentle breeze
Weather: Sunny, warm
Day's Run: 107 miles
The wind held overnight though the mainsail was slatting every few minutes, a bit trying on the nerves, I thought about putting the drifter up instead but that was an awful lot of messing around to do in the small hours of the morning so I put up with it and checked the sail regularly with the spotlight to make sure no damage was evident. This morning the wind became wistful and indecisive, rather like me at times. In the space of an hour I had made about five sail changes (seeing as we only have three sails - not including spares and storm sails - that seems a good effort to me), I had the pole down then up and now down again, the drifter up then sheeted out to the end of the boom, the mainsail down, the drifter down, the mainsail up, the jib up then poled out wind on wing, then we looked to be on a collision course with a rather large tanker coming the other way, so down with the pole and a course alteration to starboard. Now the wind seems to have settled from the north nor' west so we have left the pole down and are broad reaching on the starboard tack.
Another little incident of note this morning, I noticed a brown stain trickling out from the spud locker. I looked inside and a flurry of tiny flies wafted out, all my carrots were rotten and have now been committed to the deep, deep sea. Fortunately the potatoes still look good and I have since cleaned the locker out, sprayed the flies, cleaned it again, aired the potatoes and returned them to the locker. Last night I felt like I had tiny insects crawling over my face, I suspected small flies and also BC's hair, so BC has since had a good brush - he definitely needed it, the furniture has been brushed, the flies have been dispatched, I shall have a shave and wash later so hopefully we will sleep a little better tonight. Oh what excitement I hear my dear readers exclaim.
All is well.
Bob Cat:
What sort of skipper do I have here, cannot tell the difference between fur and flies? The brush was welcome so I am glad the flies galvanized the skipper Bob into some action of consequence at last, instead of always fiddling around upstairs - oops - on deck I mean, my salty old cat felona slipped a bit there. But what I really want is some fish, some good old fashioned fresh feline fattening fish. For now I do all that I can . . . Zzzzzz.