What a day!

ALICE'S ADVENTURES
ANDREW AND CELIA SHARPE
Wed 1 Dec 2010 11:19
The crew have been pretty busy today.
 
The boat had to be hand steered most of the night (Monday) and all morning while they tried to work out what was wrong with the autohelm.  We emailed Dave Beasley at Raymarine who once again was brilliant with his very detailed and prompt response.  Thank you Dave.  Then this afternoon Andrew emptied out the lazarette and our star engineer Chris got to work.  After a lot of adjustments and finally putting on the old clutch drive unit we are back under way again.  So we spent the afternoon wallowing around fixing the problem, not doing any miles.  All working again so well done Chris.  Much calmer and no wind now!
 
Then when George was taking the fishing lines in he found he had caught a fish.  This was landed this time and made a delicious supper for Celia, George and Roger.   George is particularly pleased as he spent some time this morning making a new lure (as the others had been lost) out of the sellophane packet from some jaffa cakes.  He is also pleased that he beat Roger to landing a fish.  Roger then filleted and cooked it.  Beautifully done - not a bone in it.   Chris had one of the pork steaks that were planned for the night's dinner but Andrew crashed out before dinner. 
 
It was a quiet night so we did a single person watch and everyone got a bit more sleep and we all fell more refreshed this morning.  Still very hot, cloudy and humid.  This morning we decided that we had to sail as we have to ration out the diesel.  So we spent over an hour sorting out bits of spaghetti rope and putting out the twin headsails.  The wind is finally behind us but very light and we are doing about 4 knots. 
 
George was very pleased this morning to receive his advent calendar as usual.  We also opened the first door on the one that Jenny gave us. 
 
ALICE