After my frankly lazy, but hopefully quite cunning plan of yesterday, I went to sleep desperately hoping it would all come good. Unfortunately, nothing ever goes quite to plan out here!
Having set my alarm for an early start, I settled myself down for a nice sleep to prepare for a busy week. However, at 4 o’clock I was rather rudely awaken by a banging behind my head. Having worked out where I was, and that I wasn’t about to have a conversation with Fabio Capello about the quality of beef (dreams seem to follow strange directions out here), I deduced that the rudder, which I had so carefully tightened up the connections on earlier, had come loose and was flapping about in the waves. Bugger.
Never mind; it’s a fairly simple job to fix. So I put on a few bits to keep me warm and leaned forward to open the hatch. Literally the second my hand touched the handle, I heard the gentle patter of rain. A few words were said, mostly not suitable for repeating (probably the only one that is is “you” - referring to the weather; it went downhill from there). Whether it heard or not, I don’t know, but it certainly responded. By raining harder. If it thought it was being funny, I really wasn’t impressed, so I decided to have a hissy fit. I was not going outside until the rain stopped, and I slumped back onto my sleeping bag with the grumpiest face I could muster.
After a few tense minutes, the battle was over. I had taken on the weather at its cheekiest, and won. It seems my stubbornness knows no bounds. With a wry smile, I went to fix the rudder, only to be greeted with a splash in the face; you can’t win them all.
After a bit more sleep, I dragged myself outside. Against all probability, the weather had followed the forecast - maybe it had learned its lesson overnight. I had awoken to northerly winds. Sadly, I’d drifted a little further north than I’d hoped as well, but it was no disaster. I set out to regain those lost miles, and more. As you can see from the picture, the last few days haven’t exactly taken me on the most direct route, but we’ll get there in the end!
Following a good day’s rowing, we took a big step. Stepping into the world of tropical storms, tropical fish and the totally tropical taste of Lilt, we crossed over the Tropic of Cancer and into tropical waters. Having hovered just north of it for a while, it could be said it was long overdue, but better late than never. Right on cue, out popped the sun from the clouds, and proceeded to give a lovely backdrop to my dinner (sorry, another boring sunset for you, only this time it’s tropical!).
Day one of the big push, and it’s 1-0 to me. I’m going to regret saying that tomorrow when it all goes wrong!
