Friday departure was originally scheduled for beween 11-12 local time but becuse of concerns over the weather we delayed departure until about 1 o’clock.
With the wind on the nose skipper “pirate” Peter expertly used a spring to bring the nose through the wind and take us off the outer end of the raft of all four Ondeck boats with about 50 onlookers watching every move. I’m sure the applause would have lasted longer except for the yelling shoreside of one of our mate we’d left behind!
After a sucessful touch and go collection of said mate we motored to the edge of the marina and began to raise sail. A consise walk through of the man overboard procedures was followed by a couple of practice tacks to familiarise the crew with the working of the boat and we were on our way, though quite how we managed to be placed 4th having been the first boat to depart no one seems to be able to explain!
The crew settled in togther well, and the watch patterns were established as 3 hours on, 6 hour off. Mike the leader of 2 watch with Denise, Mark and Tim soon couldn’t stop singing Denie Denise, who by the way sends mum and dad a thank you for the message onboard.
We’ve seen several pods of Dolphins so far in addition to an assortment of jellyfish and a sea turtle swam past the side of the boat. It is rumored that there is a special cargo of aged rum aboard, but pirate Pete is refusing to acknowledge or disclose it’s loation. I feel a walking of the plank may be called for before the end of the journey.
We hae been getting winds of circa 20 knts from the stern so have been making around about 8.3 knts average nearly all in the right direction for our destination, the crew is happy and we’re all taking on water….drinking water!
Keep the messages coming we love to receive them
All for now
Minerva
