July 27th, 2009

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Monday 27 July. No wind

Monday, July 27th, 2009

At 15.20 hours UTC I am at 40.31 N 21.48 W with 885 miles to go to Loctudy. A 91 mile day. The wind dropped during the night and went more to the N.E., on the nose, forcing me 30 degrees below the rhumb line. We have been motoring since early this morning. Practically no wind. We had to hand steer because both the ST1000 and ST2000 Autohelm auto pilots would quit unexpectedly. A real pain when you have been spoiled with hardly ever touching the helm. It turned out to be a loose ground connection and fixed it at sun light. It is a beautiful sunny day. I took a cockpit bath, sliced up the second fish for jerky and made a fish soup for lunch from the bones and leftovers with the last of our cauliflower, some onion, bouillon cubes and soup noodles. I started this a little earlier. Herb suggested a way point slightly to the east of our rhumb line to try and avoid 25/30 knot potential winds to-morrow. At least they will be on our stern. A French CGM container ship just passed us half hour ago heading towards the West. The first traffic we have seen since leaving Horta. I am enjoying the book “Salty Dream” translated from “Zoute Droom”. Written by Arie Twigt, our new friend, the accordion player at our Wednesday night party at Peter’s Place in Horta. It is the story of him and his wife, Hella, sailing to the Med and Caribbean and back to Holland on a 28 foot engine less boat when they were in their mid twenties, in the mid seventies. He tells it just like I heard him speak, a great read. Ron is practicing his bowline knots. To-day is Sid Nesbit’s 70th birthday…..We became friends in 1972 and since 1974 I have missed being at his birthday party only about 4 or 5 times till I left on this journey. Wished I could be there, to-day.