It's getting hotter - 28th April

Hi all.

We are at about 15 degrees north latitude. I didn't think it could get any hotter but it has. My perception however could be swayed by being on mother watch yesterday (Each day, 1 person from each of the watches is moved to cooking and cleaning duties. They don't have sailing responsibilities, and around the preparation and clearing up of meals, they have more time to catch up on sleep, and attend to other personal chores.) Can you imagine preparing breakfast lunch and dinner for 18 in a sauna? Lunch and dinner are cooked meals so being in the galley with 2 burners going on the hob and an oven on, in a small space that has very little air flow, even with the hatch open, is incredible. James and I needed head bands on and were drinking constantly.

With James in the galley

Occasionally I had slight feeling of dizziness starting and had to pop my head up on deck to just breath for a few minutes. My reward, after a whole morning’s toil, was to sit up at the bow on a folded sail, reading, listening to music on my iPad and enjoying the breeze to be had there. Having a shower and washing my hair was bliss, but the two hours in the galley again afterwards cooking the evening meal felt as if all the benefit was undone.

Night time on deck is now the comfortable time of the day and last night is was positively balmy, just tee shirt and shorts needed.

This morning we've been treated to the sight of another yacht up ahead on the horizon, which means we are closing the gap to them. It has renewed are competitive spirit and we laid down the gauntlet to Nautica watch to catch them up by the lunch time watch change.

I have to do the weekly check on my life jacket, which means inflating it and leaving it for a few hours to check it doesn't go down and checking the gas cylinder, which causes the automatic inflation, if it gets wet, is intact.

At the five o'clock meeting Ben asks all to give one thing we have learned each day and it can be anything, not necessarily to do with the sailing. Some days it’s difficult to come up with something, so I have to make sure I have looked something up or have a sailing point learned. I've taken to learning a new knot on most days, so my collection is growing.

At the moment we are trucking along in a good breeze. Let's hope we can keep in the wind and overtake some of our competitors.