Day 5

Dad was about to do today's blog posting earlier, having found himself with no immediate jobs to attend to, but then using the computer made him feel sick (it is VERY rocky) and then Wanda, the self-steering broke (again) so now I'm picking up again after a delicious lunch of avocado on bread.



It was a wild night again last night, gale-force winds and five metre waves from about 7.30pm onwards. Then a catalogue of near-disasters: Wanda's paddle come up at the same time as the manual steering slipped off it's pulley rendering it useless. We therefore had no steering and were still tearing along in the pitch black! We treble-reefed the genoa to try and keep us in some kind of straight line, I hung off the back of the boat and between us dad and I managed to fix the paddle down again. Dad then managed to get the manual steering back on and mum got us back on track. Eventually getting Wanda working again (after a brief time when the main came out of the gallows), we made a brilliant course, southwest at 5.5-6 knots until morning, leaving us with a new 24-hour record of 122 miles. BOOM!



In other news, I'm well on the way to the predicted 400 leg bruises. Marcus is feeling better every day (bar a short relapse this morning) and the chunder count remains almost inexplicably on zero. It took me 25 minutes to wash up lunch, put away the mayo and make a cup of tea (I also accrued 3 new bruises and smashed an egg during this time). We're still flying along and everyone's pretty chirpy today having had some good sleep after the hour's panic described above.



Today's game was "what are the most useful things on board"? Mum, Marcus and I all independently listed dad as one of the most useful things on board. To say that he's pleased and flattered by the responses is an understatement!



Last night's Haiku:



Minging

Already wet weather gear

Pull on drenched salopettes

Back out to the dark



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