Saturday 20 September 2008

K: Schooshling

KP - what do you mean you couldn't find any other references for "schooshling"?? The Concise Oxford told me they'd accepted my recommendation to include it. You sure you spelt it right??...Oh well...

Anyway, we're at it again - schooshling that is. My earlier optimistic view that we'd manage to stay ahead of the high pressure system was obviously overly optimistic and we had a nice park-up after all. Very frustrating when the end is almost within cooee. Now beating into a short choppy Celtic Sea, and looks like we're going to be head-bashing the rest of the way from here too. Huey's definitely making us work for it, right to the end!

We've now started to feel the effects of the tides around the south coast of the UK. This is also quite frustrating. Whenever I think we're making progress from the boatspeed and course shown on the compass/instruments on deck, half the time the GPS down below shows that we've been barely moving at all. Or worse - going backwards. But we are now definitely closer to England than Ireland.

The smog has been very thick on the horizon at sunrise the last few mornings, with the sun a sinister orangey-brown colour when it rises. And we've started to see ships again too - not as many as I would have expected given how close we are to the traffic separation schemes off the SW corner of the UK. Anyway, all signs of progress of a sort. I'm hopeful we might see some lights from some off the lighthouses tonight too.

Keep that bubbly cold, and don't drink it all before we get there. On our way - honest!!

K.

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