Sailing around the World ( presently at sea )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Thu 16 Sep 2010 09:10
WEGNESDAY  15th   SEPTEMBER   2010
 
Again , another beautifull starrey night to be at sea,  still plenty of lightning off to the north.
I wont repeat myself tonight,
 
Aileen loves to read on her watch, while skipper finds things to do , or in lots of cases, just lie down on the aft deck and stare at stars.
 
09.00hrs  RADIO NET   " Destiny " are duty net controllers today, and Thomas did the official buisness, He joined the boat in Darwin and
is skipper untill they arrive in Coco's Islands.
We are 3rd boat in the fleet, with the rest not very far behind, the wind is very fickle, and with a lumpy sea, its difficult to get any sort
of speed out of the boat.
Skipper did a chart and marked the position of all the boats every day, so we can see at a glance where everybody is located
relative to ourselves.
 
We are about 27 miles south of the rum line,all our weather forcasters are telling us to keep south, and looking at our grib file ( weather diagrams)
on the computer, it looks as if thats good advice.  sso we are staying down there, but the wind is still light.
 
10.00hrs  We turned on our high pressure fresh water pump and gave the KITE a good hosing down, We have to run the generator to do this, so
we made some water at the same time,   This uses about 250L in 15 minutes, so making water at the same time is a good idea.
We left the kite dry for a while and then set about checking if any damage had been done, lucky for us,  No damage done.
So then we set about rebagging the KITE , this is not easy on a boat, mostly because of all the little strings holding the wing.
That whole operation took about 3 hours,  when we were all done, we hoisted the wet Kite up the mast. phew ! what a job.
but we got there in the end and after a while, when the sail dried out. it worked as it should do , hauling us along behind.
 
12.00hrs  distance travelled  ..................310 miles in 48 hrs,,   ohhhhhh very slow for us.
 
14 30hrs  Dinner consisted of roast rack of lamb, creamed potatoes, and baked beans,  yum, yum,
The lamb was the best ever, so tender,,,  delicious,  Of course the skipper thinks it was his cooking.
 
We had a few naps during the afternoon,
18.00hrs,  The wind died off to about 6knots, so shortly after, we started the engine and motored in a SW direction, to get further south.
 
20hrs, we had a light snack, lots of chat, especially recounting the last 24 hrs,
 
Night watches tonight, :-            10.00hrs  /  00.00hrs ..................................... Neil
                                                00.00hrs  .  02.00hrs.......................................Terry
                                                02.00hrs  /  04.00hrs.......................................Skipper
                                                04.00hrs  /  06.00hrs.......................................Aileen
                                                06.00hrs  /  08.00hrs.......................................Neil
 
Thats all for now,
 
Signed :-      Stephen Hyde    ( Skipper )