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Day nine and progress - We've left the gnomic chart and are now using the chart for the Western Approaches. A big deal after 8 days of plotting daily positions which show up as about an inch of movement on a large chart of the Atlantic! Very rolly night though as we caught the swells off a gale in the Celtic sea - better the swells though than the gale itself! The waves proved too much for the gentle breeze we had and so it was down sails and motor - a slow slog for several hours against tide. This morning though the swell abated, the wind picked up and the tide turned - really cool - just wish I hadn't suggested the guys could use the iPod player - I must be off a generation....Anyway, we're now in soundings, 125 meters, and dropping so progress!
We did manage one typical boater problem this morning - a blocked head, well a blocked outlet pipe coming from the head but no one was willing to take it apart to prove it. As the saying goes - two heads are better than one (sorry!) so we took all of the sails out of the forward head and all is well. One humorous side to this story of bathroom humour - GB who discovered the problem had suffered through previous race boats with blocked heads, so he immediately popped a couple of Immodium to spare himself the bucket without realizing Eclipse had a second head. We're taking bets now on when he explodes.....
Weather looks to remain moderate but variable until Wednesday and then see us in with a following wind of about 15-20 knots. We'll just need to make sure we get the kite down at Cowes and not overshoot it! Water, diesel and tuna supplies appear to be in good order. A dig through the lockers even resulted in a small packet of chocolate chip biscuits - I think I could have sold them for a quid a piece having had to quickly pull my hand away from the gnashing teeth as the pack was unwrapped...
Big debate now - Anchor Burger (a Cowes thing) or a curry, beer or shower first.....
- Greg
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