Dear Family and Friends
Happy to report all well with crew Rocket / Stop Rhino Poaching - still!
A special celebratory birthday meal on deck last night with G&T all round (just one :)- it was a good evening.
As a result of the current windless environment we had a relatively calm night last night with no "all hands" - a cause for celebration. There are of course plenty of squalls running all around us so we have to keep a beady eye out for them. They skulk up on us, typically from behind like cowards, huff and puff and blow us all around and then depart as just as quickly causing action and adrenalin in their short stay with us.
Sailors are a suspicious lot - and we are starting to understand the reason why. The issue is of course the lack of an "off button". If Google could invent a sailing "off button", this would resolve a lot of issues. However this may possibly only come when the Star Wars technology evolves. Before we started this race, we knew we had to head north to avoid the dreaded "doldrums" - a place of no wind. However during the first few days of this race, every single Newbie was praying desperately for the doldrums. And now this dream has come true. Guess what - we no longer want it! The sails flap around and we go nowhere fast and now there is no button to turn these windless days off. Johan comments that we are like farmers and their relationship with rain - too much or too little - never just right. So now we are even suspicious of speculating on a Rio date!
Staying with suspicions, good friend Eric has asked if we know what a Dead Man's Roll is. Eric we are not even going to ask for risk of tempting fate. Having said that, I am convinced we had tried a huge number of dance steps on this ocean. I may not know the proper names but we are all very aware of the many and varied results that can be obtained from these different dance moves. Like all new dancers, many toes are being trodden. However in the Atlantic this results in water flying into the cabin.
Gareth volunteered : for a swim under the boat this afternoon - no Cathy we did not keelhaul him. We did tie a rope to him just in case. We also did check that our fishing line would not catch him. Secretly we were hoping he may attract some other large fish to our trailing line - no such luck - yet.
RR had a relatively quiet day - apart from our anti-water making machine. This nasty (??) pump gets fed cool salt water, bubble free, via an ingenious invention. It gets its full quota of 12V and a huge open pipe to deliver water. And it just sits there. Not making water! It has one day to work before we start feeding it diesel and watch it choke to death! (I am hoping that water makers can read as well as spinnakers and it will decide to work tomorrow...) Susan, Bushy says we do have enough drinking water (or beer)
Hopefully tomorrow brings more wind which will allow us back into the race.
Lots of love and best wishes to all our family and friends
Regards
Mike on behalf of Team Rocket/Stop Rhino Poaching
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