41:45S 53:44E
Tales of Amok's Adventures
Mike Jones
Thu 6 Jan 2011 19:51
Evening wee limpits.
Well, at long last, after much searching, AMOK has finally found the westerlies and accordingly are now rigged wing and wing (both headsails poled out with no mainsail) and screaming along at something exceeding 8 knots with a course which hovers between 070 and 100. And it's dark! Woohoo!! We have had to go further south than we planned, but at last we have found each other; and what a difference it makes.
Sometimes, the boat goes into a bit of a roll, rolling to one side then the other. Just when you think you need to be doing something (like finding your lifejacket), it calms down and if you listen closely you can hear the sea taunt you; "he he got you again!!"
We had a riotous game of scrabble this evening, we decided to allow "previously unpublished" words. Pandora came up with a cracker; it was "febit". For the Scotts amongst you, of course you will know that this is a perfectly acceptable word which can be roughly translated to a "fair bit". You can add insult to injury by waiting til it's your turn again and adding a "Y" at the end to make "febity" which of course translates to a "fair bitty" or in real talk it's "alot". Naturally, there was a febity of laughter which went along with this one.
Mikey managed to get "glish" past the adjudicator (Tmoby) but only because the rest of us were still hooting about febity. I got knocked back on "Ju", which in my opinion was perfectly good abbreviation of "Do you". I still intend to appeal on this one. It seems that the adjudicator was protecting his position, as deeming Ju to be acceptable would have made me overtake the adjudicator's score which was simply not on.
We did get some serious jobs done today (watermaker filter change out). The boys spent most of the day trying to make the boat go faster, which in light winds is a real task. Still, with our reacher sail and with very light winds of 10 knots, they still managed to rack up 4.5 knots of headway which is great. Of course when the wind picked up, it was a case of hold on to your hats, cause we're off.
We tried some fishing earlier, but we are finding the albatrosses are trying to eat the lures. This might seem a minor problem, but the consequences of a dealing with a bird which has a 6 foot wingspan and a hook through it's beak is not something we really want to manage when we are going 8 knots. The boys have been designing mods to the line to try to avoid this happening.
The cooker and I are on speaking terms again. It continued to tell me (via error messages) that it didn't have any fuel, so I decided to play the game. "So you think you don't have any fuel, I'll show you no fuel". Can you believe it, after being truly deprived of fuel, when we re-introduced it, it suddenly played the game and started working. So relations have re-established, but still rather formal at this point. I have agreed to stop swearing at it and it has agreed to work when it has air and fuel, but please no seawater. Wus.
Hope it's not too hot in Perth and not too cold in Calgary, England and Scotland. I trust the wind has died down in Simon's Town and that the rum punches in the Caribbean are not getting in the way of work! Down here, it's cool during the day and brass monkeys at night.
Ju not just love hot water bottles??
Salty Sal :-)
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