| Oman |
| Monday, 04 April 2005 |
One of the best sailing days in a long time on board Doha 2006 as we are back in a steady 10 knots of wind, and making good progress on starboard tack towards the corner of Oman. We have full main and solent and are enjoying the flat water. It is a great cruising day, not a cloud in the sky, and we have 6 seabirds wheeling around us, 4 tropical birds and a pair of gannets. Occasionally they peel off to pick some food off the water, but otherwise we are the meeting point, around which they spin. The sun is burning, and any off watch crew are finding places in the shade to rest, the favourite spots are the sailbags.
Ahead it looks like more extremely light winds coming up tonight as we approach closer to the coast. This will be a transition period after which we get a short period of SW winds. From then on we will have variable winds to the Straights of Hormuz and onwards from there to the finish in Doha. It’s extremely hard to predict any kind of ETA as we are going to be passing through about 20 different winds between here and the finish. It will be very like sailing in the Mediterranean, either no wind, or too much.
Earlier this morning we passed through the 1000-mile to go barrier, and after some celebrating we started throwing our rice crackers in the water. Not in a fit of total madness (we are still in food rationing mode) but to offer another gift to Neptune - protection money, you might call it. We have so far paid our bill twice crossing the equator and then once on rounding the Horn, and it seems to be working, so we are continuing with it, keeping the big, bearded guy happy.
We have now done 24500 miles - we have 4% of our voyage to go.
Brian
www.maxicatdoha.com
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