It has been a very variable 36 hours on board. Not only the wind but
also the atmosphere in the goup is variable. Not sure why I think
everybody seems grumpy or maybe it is just me. Not enough food and
the fact that it all sort of tastes the same and contains beans
(again...) and pork sausage definitely does not help me. Obviously
food lessons from the first leg have not been learnt, which is a
shame... Attempts today to put some smiles on faces during happy hour
with two tracks from my "seriously happy" album failed partially. Maybe
it is because we are not in the lead? I don't care much about that; as
long as we get better every day. It is hard though for me to stay
motivated and keep everybody and myself alert on boat trim, changes in
the wind speed and direction if everybody seems distracted by little
annoyances and think they are more important than sailing fast. It is
easy to join! Guess it confirms to me that I am very sensitive to the
atmosphere in the group.
Enough about that because there is so much beauty and excitement (if you
like tweeking sails and driving a sailboat) around this 68 foot
universe (and someone just made me a nice cup of tea). In the last 36
hours we have seen the most amazing changes in weather. From grey
overcast and moist air and North Westerly breeze the wind slowly but
surely went almost full circle around us. We had beautiful shorts and
T-shirt sailing yesterday with spinaker up and 20 knots in the back.
Overnight we gybed and changed spinaker for yankee one, all on the same
course. In the whole process we got caught in a windhole and lost our
chances for a point in the scoring gate to our Irish drinking brother
and sisters. No harm done our nemesis is still 150nm behind us in a car
park. With the wind pirouetteing around us like a prima ballerina we
have to be absolutely switched on not to miss the small changes and
potential miles progress. Very busy with trim, trim, trim!
As the wind turned southerly we had to swap our shorts for woollen long
johns. This morning felt like a glorious crisp autumn morning. Fresh air
clear skies, sunshine, but with hats and foulies on. Amazing how rapidly
things can change. Three new types of birds have joined the boat and we
now have at least 15 following us. Two albatrosses though a small
variety, petrels and booby's (?) and some other birds are with us day
and night and they barely flap their wings. Very distracting and a
highlight everytime I see them. Today we also met a a big turtle and
yesterday we passed our first whale since Rio.
The GRIB files look very confused so more challenging times ahead. We
have just tacked and are heading further South hopefully towards more
pressure.
