Today conditions couldnt have been better, the south-south-westerlies
have held longer than expected at a steady 15 knots, i've been broad
beating all day with the windvane at it's best, i have not been in the
cockpit all day. I made good progress and now i'm only 105 miles from my
waypoint. I should be there tomorrow afternoon at some point.
I'm now further west than the last bit of Ireland, in fact i'm further
west than the whole of Europe, the sea is longer and easier and i'm 60
miles from the great depths of the Porcupine Abyssal Plain, what a
strange name... I'm also 50 miles from dropping off the chart of the
British Isles, quite cool as that means that in OSTAR this is where i'd
be taking out my North Atlantic chart. True, if you look at the whole
Atlantic it does not seem like I made much progress but this is only my
third day and I can start feeling that great sense of smallness compared
to the world that i wanted a taste of, and it doesnt feel that bad at
all but plotting my position on a chart where there is both Great
Britain and America gives a totally different perspective.
I've had noone on AIS for ours and my Sea-me detects no radars in range,
now i'm truly away from it all.
Ok, enough romantic musing, this afternoon i watched Rambo, kinda funny
to watch an action movie with so much shooting and blowing up from the
middle of nowhere in the sea although i guess Rambo is just another form
of romantic hero, not waves but guns etc etc.
I slept quite some time this afternoon, always broken in half hours,
and I think i finally caught up on what i had lost on the first two
days. I think to make Ostar possible you have to force yourself to sleep
right from the start, even if it costs you a little in performance, as i
think it would become very daunting after three or four days if you
simply tried to draw on reserves. Now i feel normal again, rather than
dragging along, we'll see if i'm of the same impression in a couple more
days.
I think this trip has been a fantastic idea as the mood is totally
different from even the long race we did from Kinsale to Santander.
There i would be thinking 200 miles to go whereas here it's only day 3
out of the 10 or so i want to do.
Anyway, let's keep the fingers crossed all the way, if this all goes
well it will certainly be an amazing boost of confidence for next year,
if I found it horrible it would mean disaster for the plans for OSTAR as
you'd spend your winter thinking if it really is something you want to
do. So far so good so, press on, no surrender as a wise man i know would
put it.
Ciao,
Marco
49'41N 12'22 West.
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