TNS458 20/03/2016
Aft Starboard

We’re now well and truly into the South East Trades. The wind has been
blowing at a consistent 15-20 knots for the past few days and Tenacious has
been bounding along at a steady 6-7 knots eating up the miles. We have a
comfortable motion with big rolling swells coming in on our port quarter. We
hardly need to touch the sails. The air temperature doesn’t move much from
27c but with the steady breeze it doesn’t feel oppressive. Not much sign of
birdlife but this is truly the area where the flying fishes play – we see
them constantly skittering away from the ship and they occasionally come
aboard at night to add the bait for the fishing line we have over the stern.
All very pleasant. You can see why sailors call this the “Coconut Run”.

The excitement of last night’s closely contested quiz has subsided and this
Sunday afternoon all is quiet in the sunshine. Only the engineers, the
unsung heroes of Tenacious, are still quietly working to ensure all the
systems we need – water, power, air conditioning, sewage, galley and so on –
are functioning.

Up here on watch we change helm every 30 minutes: the course is still the
same as it was yesterday – a little bit South of West.
We then check the fishing line for signs of the elusive tuna before settling
back to enjoy the sea and the sunshine,

Chris, Izzi, Sari, Mike, Jeff, Norman, Craig