5:06.34S
120:42.96W
Wednesday
27th June – Re-synchronise Watches Again
It’s around 0200 on Wednesday morning
according to the ship’s clock and my watch. It’s about 1000 in the UK. A few hours ago – at around 2100 our
time - we crossed the 120ºW meridian so at lunchtime today we’ll have to put watches back
another hour. That’ll put us 8
hours behind GMT and 9 hours behind BST.
We’ll go through this rigmarole once more before we get to the Marquesas,
as we cross the 135ºW meridian. Then, on
arrival, we’ll go back a further 30 minutes to conform to the GMT-9.5 hours
local time adopted in the Marquesas.
It’s always
rather pleasant being around the Equator and approaching a meridian at which the
time goes backwards. Dinner can be
eaten in the cockpit at 1900 just as the sun is setting. The next day, of course, having adjusted
the time, the lights go out with a bang at around 1800 so we need to deploy the
caravan awning light in the bimini to see the way to our mouths for a few days
whilst we work our way several more degrees west.
The wind has
held good, Percy and Orville are doing their stuff, we’re making around 7 knots
on average straight for the archipelago and we have something under 1,200NM to
go. By this time tomorrow we should
be 2/3s of the way there with around 1,000NM to run.
We were
visited by a tropic bird today – resplendent with characteristic long white tail
streamers. It circled several times
and looked as though it might cadge a lift. It made several very convincing
approaches looking much like a Harrier from the Fleet Air Arm might have looked
in those far-off halcyon days when they were allowed proper aircraft and had something to land
them on. Anyway, it thought better of it (perhaps
it saw our Ensign and thought that, by now, we’d all have forgotten what to do
if it tried to land). Rather
churlishly, given the goodwill flowing upwards from Arnamentia’s deck, it
attempted a bombing run before departing.
It missed. That doesn’t
sound at all like the Fleet Air Arm.
John Whyte of
the OCC mentioned in an e-mail that he and Lyn had been a bit surprised by the
amount of fouling on their topsides at the end of their passage from the
Galapagos to the Marquesas some years ago.
Steady now, we took considerable trouble to ensure our topsides and
waterline were sparkling before we left the Galapagos
Islands. However, be
that as it may, a quick look aft along the sides of the boat from the bow
reveals a depressing sight I’m afraid.
There are, indeed, large areas of caramel coloured fouling in evidence,
stretching several feet above the waterline, which will have to be removed
somehow on arrival. And here we
were thinking that, as long as we kept moving smartly along, the stuff wouldn’t
have time to attach itself.
Hm.
