Stairway to Tristan

Day 17 of the Return Trip

The first thing that I need to do is acknowledge Ryan for the title of this one (or I will never hear the end of it).

We are about 180NM from the mystical isle of TdC, and thanks to a fortuitous change in the wind, are looking likely to make it without tacking again.

The moon came out for part of the night watches last night, and for the rest we had to endure a light drizzle of rain. The clouds made a little gap for the sun this morning, which has opened up to reveal some of that evasive blue sky. It's still cold, but it makes you feel a bit better to have the sun shining on you.

Night watches are cause for some great entertainment - particularly when it comes to waking the next candidate up for their watch. There is something about the  motion of the boat, or maybe it's just this boat, that produces the craziest of dreams. The responses of waking people from these dreams are priceless. Some choice ones have been from Dave: "Okay, just hold on, let me get my cricket bag", and "sure thing, where's my towel?".

Brennan: "Just wait, I'm busy explaining something to coach" and "What the hell did you give me a card for??". Ric doesn't say a word for about 20 minutes after he is woken up, but he does take a period of exactly 5 minutes to sit on the engine box and stare at his boots before putting them on (every time). Raf will pipe up with funny comments, but not when he's been woken up - right in the middle of his watch.

We had the mother of all fishing line tangles. It was a macrame of note. It looked like a pile of nylon 2 minute noodles. In fact, it looked a bit like Ric's home-made dream catcher. The two lines that we had out had just made a mess of one another. We stood more chance of catching something if we used them as a net. But we don't have much line to spare, so we took it in turns, and after about 5 hours of relay-untangling we got them undone. It has been decided only to have one hand-line out now.

Love your Monday, and enjoy the last of the long weekend!

The Team