Good, sunny and clear morning from the Great Atlantic lake!
This morning we were able to watch our reflection in the water, because only from time to time the water was disturbed by a slight breeze. Our speed at that time was around 1,3 kts and nothing was left from the cyclone of previous days.
But this slow speed has allowed us to explore the ocean.
During this trip we have read a book about Thor Heyerdahl's voyage on Ra2 across the Atlantic. Previously we have only heard about so called Portuguese warships or poisonous jellyfish that can cause partial paralysis up till 5 hours. This morning we not only saw this bubble like creatures but also managed to catch one with the bucket. Our guest was nicknamed Mary and attracted a lot of interest from our crew members.
That didn't finish our explorations. Just a short time later our captain sighted something bleach floating towards us - from the distance it looked like a bucket, but later it came out to be a lost helmet covered in seaweed and moluscs. Reminds something from the Pirates of The carribean and the crew of the Flying Dutchman. Muris proposes to attach some string to it and present it to Aldis who just few days ago sacrificed his cowboy style hat to the ocean.
Just few minutes later there was the next joy about the next catch. This time we caught some seaweeds that reminded either grapes or some kind of necklace. Out of these weeds fell a tiny crab that was nicknamed Christofor (to honor the great explorer Columbus) who went to meet Mary just few moments later. As we joke, the sea not only takes, but also gives something.
Speaking about other activities. Last few days were full of either almost no wind and singing of Latvian songs on the deck during a starry night and either of pretty strong wind (up to 29 kts). Some of us overdosed mushrooms (in a soup) and were sick for 1,5 days, some of us are already working on sail sewing plan for the next days. However the biggest adventure was a fight with our holding tank - after few hours of intensive work, it is working again.
Otherwise we are slowly approaching Bermudas and at the time of writing this message we have 529 NM left to the finish. We don't believe in metheorological miracles and we admit that our hopes for line honors were blown away by the cyclone. If not us then hopefully our friends from Finnish boat "Vahine" will manage to beat our toughest and fastest competitors "Peter von Danzig".
By the way - race control has come up with a challenge for all the ships to bake a cake for the communications officer Harry. That is a challenge, because we don't have an oven... but - we have some time left!
Horizon-wide smiles from R2
P.S. ... and just received the message from Race control - 25/05 14:00 UTC Finish at sea. It looks like the last secret weapon of our captain - his special red socks - will be no help this time!