Day 13 to 35:52N 51:26W Wind F4-5SW 151nm

This morning we not only had four flying fish on the front deck (as is quite usual) we also had a large squid. Exactly how this got there I am not sure but presumably it was minding its own business and swam out of the side of a wave at just the wrong moment. We've also been seeing large numbers of Portuguese Men of War - I won't be going for a swim until we are well clear of these. Justin suggested that we should keep the calamari as fishing bait but I accidentally threw it over the side. A true "lapsus calami"*

We had a good run under plain sail until the wind dropped at noon and we decided to put the Spinnaker up again. Flushed with our success from the last time we decided to try an "improvement" suggested by Justin who has lots of Spinnaker experience. This involved running the sheet (rope on the corner of the sail that you use to control it) to the back of the boat instead of the middle. The sail went up fine but it was obviously not working very well and we needed to put it back as we had it before. The kerfuffle of getting the sail up is such that once you've just done it you don't want to go through doing it again. So we decided to try and move the sheet without dousing and dropping the sail. The first bit went fine as I managed to lasso the middle of the sheet so we could pull it in to arms reach. Tying another sheet on to the loop of the first one without flying off the boat was harder. We ran this through the block amidships then stood scratching our heads as to how to get the new sheet onto the only port winch when the old one was on there under load from the sail. Despite the obvious risk that we would end up flying Justin and Jim like kites from the back of the Spinnaker we decided they'd just heave on the old sheet while I freed it from the winch, put the new one on and took up the slack as rapidly as possible. Other than red faces, bulgy eyeballs and couple of hernias it went quite smoothly (actually no-one was hurt except that Jim needed a Band-Aid after impaling his thumb on a spring clip).

All of us are sleeping more than usual at the moment probably due to continually having to brace against the motion of the boat. I went back to bed after my 6 to 9am and woke up at 12 and the others are similarly affected. Jim apparently doesn't ever sleep after 6 and this morning wasn't up until after 9. We are only 5 days out of Bermuda and have another 7 or 8 to go so I am hoping we get used to this and build up core stability rather than continue to become more physically tired.

My PC went down today which was very scary as it is our link to email, weather and the backup plotter display in the event that the E80 fails. I removed everything that would disassemble wiped it all over in case I had salt on the contacts and reassembled it. I am very pleased to say it worked and I have now backed everything off onto a portable hard drive so I can if necessary install it onto my daughter's PC if there is a repeat performance. I am going to try and keep it as far as possible from the vibration of the boat and give it extra love and attention from now on.

Justin's homemade fish cakes for dinner - very nice.

We are setting our clocks forward one hour at midnight as we are well into the GMT - 3 time zone. This means Justin gets a short watch and the rest of us get an hour less sleep.

There's really not too much to report today which is probably better than the alternative. "May you live in interesting times" is allegedly a Chinese curse and probably a seaman's one as well.
My watch now. Night all.

Chrisus Navigium

*(Latin for slip of the pen, calamari in Latin is a pen fish - See, this is an educational blog)