I really don’t understand when the day starts, and when it finishes, or when we should be having lunch or dinner. Yes, we should just follow the sun.
We live on UTC and each day you need to change the times for meals because the light changes surprisingly fast.
I really never do the same thing at the same time I did the day before. This is what happens when you travel from east to south east. It’s a unique experience, by the way, but also one which makes it difficult to please everybody.
Today a pesto can popped open in food bag number 10. Yiyo does a great job in vacuum packing the stuff, but this somehow opened… to my dismay.
I spent two hours cleaning the mess up, it really smelled like garlic. A vampire would not be able to sail with us. “The sooner I start, the sooner this will be over”, I told myself as I wiped each package in the bag.
Conditions have eased a bit and so we got on the sail changes again. Last night was really tough. For starters, the wind shifted almost 10º, and dropped to 12 knots.
We peeled to the FR0, and then to the J1. This took half a watch, two hours! Then light winds settled in, and we changed to the MH0. But the wind kicked in again, so back to the J1. Then back to the FR0. And to the J1 again.
You could tell the guys were exhausted after hardly having any sleep. “We’ve done more sail changes in one night than in the whole race”, said Carlos as he came down for breakfast.
The last sked showed we’ve dropped one place to Alvimedica, who had a wider angle. We are on the same route as Abu Dhabi and Brunel, and both Xabi and Jean Luc agree on this.
The good news is that today is Wednesday and we’ll have dessert after dinner, a mousse de chocolat. That’ll put a smile on some faces.
The more we sail southwards, the closer we get to Micronesia, the more birds fly above us, and the more awkwardly named islands we see on the chart. The first one is Pohnpei, let’s hope it brings us luck. Nevertheless we keep our eyes open for fishing boats, for we know they do fish a lot here.
Willy Altadill’s hand is still recovering. In the morning Ñeti removed the splint and did a bit of examination. His knuckles still hurt when he bends his fingers.
He’s got to stay on anti-inflammatories, as the doctor told us. He should not move his hand for the next five days. We fear it’s broken, but hopefully the bone didn’t move. Nevertheless, we won’t find out until he gets an x-ray.
We are doing all we can to get the antennae working again, and waiting for conditions to ease and be able to open the FB 500. (Note of the editor: Antennae are now working again). We can’t stop the boat in order to repair it. At this stage, sailing is more important than the antenna.
¡#vamosMAPFRE!
Fran Vignale