We’re just under a day away from Mauritius and all is well aboard LUSH. That “potential” tropical storm I mentioned in my last blog hasn’t fully developed to anything of concern yet and isn’t in our path at the mo. We will come into more breeze in this next 24hours, poss up around 30knots which LUSH is well able to handle.

Luckily the lads have always stayed ahead of any problems onboard and this trip has been no exception. They discovered a snapped/stretched shackle on Reef 1 when doing the final rig check in the Cocos. The shackle had managed to hold the sail in place on the previous passage but it certainly wouldn’t have held on this one, which would have been a real killer as we’ve been on reef 1 for most of our 10 days at sea. We couldn’t have replaced it easily and safely at sea and might have had to sail underpowered on reef 2!

Yesterday morning Paul heard a slightly different sound to usual coming from the lazarette (aft storage compartment). I couldn’t hear anything different myself. It’s amazing how he picks up even the slightest difference in tonality anywhere on the boat. Anyhow, investigating this further, it turned out the joint which attaches the autopilot to the rudders had worked its way loose and was about to break. This would have led to further issues which with poor weather approaching would not have been ideal. Alan, our mighty engineer got straight to work on it, not easy in rolling seas and driving rain, and managed to fix it for now. In fairness we’ve just logged 20,000 nautical miles so it really shouldn’t be a surprise to have some wear and tear at this stage.

And now for the latest on our fish score… well this really isn’t good news… they’ve come back at us just when we thought we had the upper hand! The current score is 7 to the Fish Vs 6 to LUSH!!!!! Disaster!! Al and Paul really are at a loss to know what move to make next. With very little fishing gear left they are now only using one rod! We’ve had some massive marlin bite but the problem we reckon is that we can’t slow down quick enough to haul them in, next thing we see them jump and then they’re gone! I guess after an adventure like this sailors and fishermen return with stories of the ONE that got away, the problem for us is ours will be the story of the TWENTY PLUS that got away… I’m afraid it’ll be too long a story to tell L

There’s talk of Eddie taking the lads sport fishing in Mauritus so maybe they’ll pick up some tips then! Here’s hoping!

No doubt ye’ll all be glad to hear (back home) that we’ve been experiencing plenty of good oul Irish weather on the last few days (grey mountainous seas with driving rain) and have had to take out our oillies for the first time since leaving the Canaries. At least it means we’ve started going through the massive box of cuppa-soups I bought in Southampton which we honestly haven’t had an appetite for till now! Plenty of Irish music on the go too! Happy days!!

Lots of love,

Audrey xxx

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