Be The Jam

Position: Le Constant Bank

S 06°15.36'

E056°15.23'

Back on a heading of 310 degrees with a moderate wind from the SE.

Woke up to the sound of the fishing reel playing out at high velocity this morning, no more than usual I suppose, but through my foggy haze of sleep induced trauma (The shock of waking up in the confined space I sleep in is bad enough) it seemed we had caught Jaws' Bro. As it turned out Rupert dragged in, be it a small (compared with the Wahoo), a fine specimen of a fish; a blue fin tuna.

That makes on our penultimate day of crossing the Indian Pond 23 days at sea, 22 cans of tuna, 21 turds, 20 times my nose has peeled, 19 fish lost back to the sea, 18 bottles of beer, 17 times fixing the bloody engine (to no avail), 16 times farted (philip - you can add a couple of zero's onto that number. Philip the farting Frenchman), 15 gallons of fresh water, 14 boxes of matches, 13 repaired sails, 12 belts broken (on the autohelm), 11 water pumps fixed, 10 books read, 9 bulbs blown, 8 bread baking days, 7 cartons of cigarettes smoked (not myself I might add, gave up!), 6 boat's seen, 5 times over board, 4 tuna fish caught, 3 hours lost, 2 times up the mast, and a huge Wahoo on the end of the line!!

Song writing was never my strong point. We should be getting into Mahé sometime tomorrow morning if all goes well. We took another 2hrs of our watches this morning, that makes 3hrs lost on our crossing, gives you some idea how far we've gone. We are now only 4hrs ahead of GMT.

2315hrs

Gibe onto final course to Victoria - Mahé Seychelles , heading 290 degrees.

Just finished a watch of 5.5 hrs (1700 till 2300); don’t feel tired, even though it is tough today at the wheel, bad swell, strong wind, and trying to hold an awkward heading. Maybe after ten days of manning the wheel between the three of us 24 hrs a day, we are all iron men or maybe I'm just excited about having a beer tomorrow! Well it’s of to bed for a couple of hours sleep before my 0200-0500 watch.