Indian Ocean - Day 8

Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Tue 9 Oct 2012 10:18
16:51.6S 070:08.1E  1600 miles covered, 750 miles to go
 
The wind has moderated, but fortunately there is a good (1 - 2 knot) current behind us so we are still making good progress towards Mauritius.  We now need to average 7.8 knots to get there for Andrea's birthday.
 
I am radio net controller today.  It is a challenge working out what people are saying now we are several hundred miles apart and the voices are increasingly obscured by background noise.  We are using a 6 megahertz band, which should be OK to transmit up to 600 miles, but the issue seems to be the limited power of some of the boat's radio transmitters.  Still, using a system of relays between boats with good radios we can still contact everybody.  This morning I had to use Zoe, Dreamcatcher, and Gunvor to reach all sections of the fleet.  Zoe has a great radio.  We can usually communicate fine with them and yet we are at opposite ends of the fleet, over 400 miles apart.
 
Andrea made pizza dough in the breadmaker today, so we had pizza and coleslaw for lunch.