Incredible sunset

I took over from Rowan at 1am, it’s amazingly balmy and warm at that hour, with the bliss of no mozzies! I kept myself awake reading and doing a couple of Super Fiendish Sudokus on my Times App on the iPad. We don’t keep a light on in the cockpit at night so that you can see out. Because of the slant on the windows you have a lovely view out at the night sky and I did manage to see a shooting star, but no sign of the meteor shower sadly.

We had thought about putting a reef in the sails before nightfall but when we looked at Predict Wind it looked so gentle that we didn’t. The wind behaved unpredictably (as it so often does) and picked up on my shift to about 22 knots so we were going at a good pace, I half wished we had put the reef in as we screamed along in the pitch dark, but to be honest it was still comfortable sailing and we were averaging 8.5 knots in the right direction ….I’m definitely getting braver. So everything is going to plan on the route thank goodness.

Rowan took over at 5:30am and I was so grateful to be back in bed until 9am.

No sign of any fish life, the odd occasional sea gull, you do wonder what they are doing this far from land. Which reminds me of a story from Hugh the guy from Aberdeen on the Cat with the dodgy fuel. He told me that when they did their crossing over to the Caribbean, their worst weather was in the Bay of Biscay and that they broke both centre boards The most remarkable thing at the time was a racing pigeon that landed on the boat at the peak of the storm, utterly exhausted it collapsed into a heap, they gave it a bit of water and could see its ring around it’s foot but did not want to disturb it. The next morning when the storm had died down, it got up and just took off again. Such extraordinary birds, we once had a taxi driver in London who was a pigeon fancier, and it was fascinating to hear what they got their birds to do. A whole world of betting and long distance flying I had no idea about.

The winds are still behaving and we seem to be sailing east at great speed, and may overshoot ourselves when we need to head South. Most of the afternoon was taken up with reading, I’m really enjoying the book. Sadly in the evening I lost three rounds of Backgammon on Rowan’s new layout!

Another stunning sunset, each one is different depending on the cloud cover.

I did the first watch until 1am which allowed me to finish my book. What an insight to Afghanistan and what a remarkable character Rory is, I wonder what kind of PM he would have made. I can understand his cynicism about foreign intervention, when people in charge don’t have a true understanding of the incredibly complex local culture. So sad that the dog he walked with and befriended, died the night before he was meant to fly to Scotland to join Rory. He was given lamb bones and because his teeth were so bad and many were missing, he couldn’t crush them and the bones lacerated his stomach. I always argue with people about not giving dogs cooked bones, and now I understand that it is particularly concerning for dogs with bad teeth. We have first hand knowledge that their bad teeth can have nothing to do with diet and all to do with genetics. Our dogs, mother and son, ate the exact same diet for ten years, Mother always had the most amazing teeth complimented by the vet at each annual check up. Her poor old son would get the exact opposite report, and he would have to suffer the indignity of us brushing his teeth to try and get rid of his terrible plaque. Luckily we have discovered a crushed shell sprinkle that we put on his food every day (very abrasive), it keeps the plaque at bay and best of all gets rid of his smelly breath!