There isn’t much to see out here in the middle of the ocean, apart of course from the sea and the sky, which are both very blue and very big but tend to look the same after a few days. There are also a few bits of seaweed drifting past but they don’t really do a lot other than bob around so they don’t hold my attention for very long.
So yesterday afternoon I was rather excited, and a little puzzled, when I heard what sounded exactly like one of those squeaky rubber bones which dogs seem to find so thrilling. Neither dogs nor bones abound in these parts but the mystery was solved when a lone bird appeared from behind my sails, wheeling and swooping around the boat. It was soon joined by another identical one, and they squeaked happily at each other.
Actually I came to realise they were probably squeaking at Odyssey, thinking she was a great big bird. I guess the twin headsails boomed out from the bow could be mistaken for wings, but only by creatures with very small brains. I tried squeaking back at them but they just looked at me askance and flew off into the distance. I’ve no idea what they were as being a Londoner I’m not very good with birds, but I can say for sure that they weren’t pigeons or sparrows.
They weren’t robins either, and I know this for a fact as I once had a friend called Bobbin The Robin. He lived in the garden at my house in Wimbledon and used to help me weed the flower beds. Well, actually it wasn’t so much help as hop around my feet eating the worms and insects which I disturbed. I found this rather off-putting as I’m a vegetarian and there he was slaughtering innocent creatures right in front of me. None of my other meat-eating friends do that, certainly not at the dinner table.
Bobbin stuck around for two years and eventually turned up with a little friend of his own who also came to help with the gardening. However they disappeared soon after that and since they looked like the arty type I expect they moved up the hill to Wimbledon Village to take up residence in the garden of some smart little antiques shop. Oh well, it was a nice friendship while it lasted.
Pigeons are also very familiar to me as they flock down to the pond at my Clapham house on hot summer days to teeter on the edge trying to sip at the water. My how I laugh as they jostle and shove each other until eventually one poor soul falls in and flaps and flails around madly trying to get out again! Keeps me amused for days.
So that pretty much sums up my knowledge of birds.
Anyway, back to the here and now, I’m rambling a bit because there isn’t really anything new to say from mid-Atlantic. In the last 48 hours I haven’t seen more than 5 knots of wind, and so my boat speed varies from 0 to 3 knots. Luckily we’re now well into the Gulf Stream which is pushing us along at another knot or so, and it’s pleasant enough drifting along in the sunshine while I doze in the cockpit.
Actually there is one bit of news – thanks to some helpful advice from Anya all the way down in Curacao I no longer make such a mess while eating. She was clearly concerned by my account of dropping forkfuls of food down my shirt so suggested using a spoon. I’m pleased to report that this works very well indeed, and I’ve also given up the nice china plate for a plastic bowl which reduces spillage even further. I think the best thing would be to blend up my food in a mixer then put it into one of those children’s mugs with a lid and a teat to drink it through, but sadly I didn’t think of that before I left.
And on that note I shall retire to the conservatory for lunch, after which a nice little nap on the terrace with a rug over my knees will while away the afternoon nicely until it’s time for tea at 4 o’clock. Night all!