Eating our way around the World ( presently at sea, between Reunion Island and South Africa )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Wed 3 Nov 2010 12:00
|
TUESDAY 2nd NOVEMBER
2010 Day 4 at
Sea.
01.00hrs. A Beautifull night, Terry is on
watch and called skipper, the wind had died down to 6 knots, so time to roll
up
the headsails and motor for a while, we set a
course of 239T back towards the rum line and waypoint,
04.00hrs, We now have the benifit of a small moon,
and it is still a beautifull night. even if we are only motor
sailing.............
The sea is flat, the stars are dancing in the sky,
and we are heading in the right direction, ( distance travelled so far,
428 n miles )
But, but, but, we have a 2 knot current against us
, which is making our passage slow, however , this gets worse and an hour
later
the current is 3.6 knots against us, Blast
the bleedin thing... Its supposed to go in the other direction and help us
along, but no,
its hindering progress big time. Our speed through
the water is 7.5 knots, but over the ground, it is only 3.9 knots, Real slow
stuff..
Its amazing that out here in the middle of an
Ocean, we would have such a strong current ! and whats more, Skippers hip is
giving trouble
once again, just to add to the
woe's...............
05.00hrs A beautifull dawn as the sky began to get
a pale shade of blue, we covered 75 miles in the last 12 hours. poor progress
for us.
Still, as said earlier, a beautifull scene, lot of
shipping traffic , heading to and from the " Cape of Good Hope "
09.00hrs Radio Call. net controller today is
" Tucanon " our NBF's Dick and Irene, plus the Bubbly Bev and Mo.
The radio thing tokk Irene about 30 mins, She tends
to be efficient at this, no chit chat, of any sort. Just your positions
please.
however we did get to talk to some of the other
boats on the SSB after the broadcast.
" Brown eyed Girl " has a dose of dirty fuel, just
like ourselves, After a while, we agreed that it had to be "
Bali " ( That dirty place )
where we got the dirty fuel, Before thart,
the last place we got fuel was in Cairns, and we checked the filters in Bali
when we arrived there
and they were in perfect condition, so they
are the culprits,
We had to stop the engine and change the filters ,
plus clean out the glass bowls, ohhh my gawd, the water and dirt was just
afull.
how the motors were still operating is
amazing. This all took about 1 1/2 hours, and then we were back
in buisness again, motoring along slowly.
We also discovered water comming in from the stern
somewhere, we will have to get into the " Lazerette " and
investigate.
( the Lazerette on the boat is the equivalent of
the Boot of a car.) A large storage space ot the back of the
boat.
15.50hrs The wind increased from the
ESE. to 14 / 18 knots, so we shut down the engine and hoisted the "
Bag of Fear " and off we went
on our merry way again,
During the afternoon, as we were discussing the
sailing language, Terry suggested ( as only Terry will do ! ) that he should
write a book
about sailing, and in particular about all the
different terminology used, or sailing langauge, and make it all
simple.......
Like why not say " The Green Light " instead
of starboard, and the " Red Light " instead of Port . The width of the
boat instead of " Beam "
and so on,, we had a real laugh with him on
this, and do you know something, he might be right,
17.30hrs We had roast lamb for dinner,
" Halal " lamb, as it was the only lamb available in Mauritius.
along with this, we had green geans, carrotts,
raost potatoes and creamed potatoes, and plenty of them.
We also had this time, mint sauce from " Tzigane "
and Dr. EE 's jam from Muaritius. all just wonderfull....... all clean plates
again.
21.00hrs,, We had some chat with other boats again
on the SSB radio , and our distance travelled was 558 n
miles,
distance to Waypoint is 80 n miles,
when we get there , we will have travelled almost
an extra 100 miles, because of the wind directions.
Spinniker flying, it was another beautifull night
at sea............ amen
Thats ti for today,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )
|