Monday 9th July

At Sea
6 46.709 S
133 33.885 W (at Midnight)

Tired and cranky we welcomed the sunrise and hopefully a better wind direction for the day. The grib looked promising for later in the day as the wind was meant to move around and come at us from east south east. Yet again Y Not encountered fishing boats – they seem to like him! As the day broke the swell began to drop and by mid morning it was down to just a ripple on the water – perfect for catching up with some sleep. It was also very good for making water so we ran the water maker to top up and make up for the last couple of days when it has been almost impossible to put any water in the tank. I even had the patience to cook sausage and biscuits for breakfast. Whilst Gerry babysat George for the morning I cleaned the floors down below decks – I can’t imagine where all the dirt comes from, we are in the middle of nowhere but there was plenty of sand and dust to sweep up. Part of the clean up included consigning our toaster to the deep, it stopped working about 3 days ago and we gave it fair chance to rethink but it was adamant that it had done enough work so we are now without a toaster; good job I can use the oven to toast! I also did something rather stupid – I know it’s not like me! I thought I’d shake the mat over the side of the boat to get rid of the crumbs and dirt that had made a home there; you’ve guessed – it now resides in Neptune’s house. I was a little upset to say the least but figure the up side to it is that I’ll have to return to Jacksonville to replace it as I’m sure that I won’t be able to get a mat anywhere else in the world. After tidying up the interior I had a short sleep before preparing lunch which we enjoyed in the sun in the cockpit. The weather was being a bit kinder and we were heading in the right general direction at about 5.5 knots. The swell remained slight and we could see for miles – not that there was anything to see today, no whales, no dolphins and no other boats. Following lunch we ran the water maker again and then Gerry went for an afternoon sleep whilst I did the baby sitting, of course the wind began to veer whilst I watched and soon we were heading north of track again, (you may have noticed that our “S” heading at the top of the page goes up and down a bit) oh well we at least have some maneuverability in our track! The wind stayed in the same direction for the remaineder of the day, we were still heading west but now we were going North West instead of South West. When we spoke to the other guys on the radio schedule we were relieved to hear that they were faring no better. Dinner preparation had a small hiccough – the propane ran out and we had to change the bottles over, this meant Gerry had to climb over the back end on to the transom and swap them out, luckily we weren’t rolling around too much at the time and I soon had dinner cooking. We ate as the sun set, not that we could see it as it was again shrouded by clouds and then we began the night watches. At the first change of watch Gerry went below and I took over, shortly after I saw a very bright white light appear in the sky and then drop dead ahead of us, it was like a torch being shone straight at us from close range; I checked the radar – nothing came up, then Gerry reappeared – the banging was keeping him awake and I told him about the light, we wondered if it was a flare and kept a really close look out for the next couple of hours but nothing else was seen (or heard on the radio which we switched on especially). About 30 minutes later a huge black cloud came towards us; I began to close the curtains up and as I was doing so Gerry reappeared again, this time the increased speed had woken him! The decision to reef the main was made and we had it all nicely tucked away before the clouds got within 3 miles of us. As it happened all of the clouds (and there were more following the first one) passed us about 2 miles away, we didn’t even get a drop of water.