Day 6 – Team work

The morning greeted us with gentle wind and a 1m swell, so we hove-to and put lines off the back and jumped in. Nothing can explain how fantastic it is to look down into 4500m of blue ocean depths. 3 dorado swam past us to observe our antics and then passed on their way.

We used the opportunity of the hove-to to fix a few minor issues on deck including the torn spray dodger, which we vitally need for any form of comfort on deck- it now looks very bohemian!

Uwe then got stuck into assessing our stock of fresh vegetables, which to our horror, had deteriorated rapidly and we spent the next hour salvaging what we could and rearranging the fridge.

Joey cooked up the last of the fresh mince for supper and we ended it off with a little of Uwe’s wife’s lemoncello. Brilliant stuff! At least we will have no scurvy on this yacht.

At 23h30 UTC the first of the night’s squalls hit us unexpectedly and it was all hands on deck to reef in. Lightening was all around us and we were heeling hard in 28 knot winds with driving rain. The block on the mainsheet broke. So we centered the main, and decided to motor out for safety.

During the rest of the night we were very vigilant at the helm, and managed to ease past 4 more squalls which were easily visible as there was good moonlight to guide us.