Today has been a quiet day - quiet weather, quiet seas and relaxed crew. We have the spinnaker up again. This is proving a great bargain buy - James got it second hand off 'Guapa' from the east coast yachting forum and we've already used it ten times more that he ever did.
We also heard from one of the other BCYC boats who crossed ahead of us from Lanzarote following the ARC (James always says they leave too early):
"Had appalling weather, went south to catch trades 300 miles off Cape Verdes headed west, no trades so far but heavy blows from SW 6/7+ and nasty confused seas, followed by heavy prolonged rain! All very foul and not what we came for! Oilskins all the way! 'Swanilda' has held up well, few minor leaks and need some spares etc but otherwise all ok"
James and Ollie caught a black scabbard fish last night but it had been dragged along by the hook for some time and something larger had discovered it and been nibbling. They decided to throw it back, which Dave and I were mortified at. The crew of some of the race boats would have dined on that precious morsel of protein for a week!
Water is also precious and expensive, and the race boats left with only two 1 litre bottles of water for each man per day. At home, we squander litres of this resource. At sea, every drop of fresh water is precious. We are surrounded by water, but unlike The Ancient Mariner, we have a water maker (today...). We still use sea water to flush the toilet and to rinse the dishes, but even this is hand pumped. After our brush with water rationing, each fresh water rinse of salty hands or a foamy toothbrush is now to be savoured.
It is such a luxury to have full tanks again with no need to worry. Even if the water maker breaks again, we still have 40 litres per day to squander if we wish. Even so, we have to burn two litres of diesel to make 60 litres of water and that is our environmental cost. On land, water treatment works are similarly hungry, yet we pour sweet water down the toilets and watch it waste away down our sinks. Today, why not think of us and try to conserve a little of this precious resource at home?
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