NOON POSITION 18:22.42N 40:40.44W
Aurelia
Shirley and Michael Webb-Speight
Sun 24 Dec 2006 20:39
LAST 24 HOURS 133NM, 1095MTG
We are a bit late today in reporting our position, such a hectic social
timetable with Christmas all those functions we have to attend. Merry
Christmas everyone, the sun is just going down here on Christmas eve and the
man in red should be heading our way in a few hours. Hope Christmas at home
has gone well and everyone had a good time.
Our menu tomorrow (after much thought) is eggs benedict for breakfast, pizza
for lunch and spaghetti for Christmas dinner!
In an effort to conserve our satellite minutes we will check in every second
day for a few days so don't panic if you don't find our news tomorrow! I
think we can buy more minutes once people on dry land hit their desks again!
We wanted to award this years maths prize to Sarah (Cloughley) Dalzell (aka
Sahara pipeline) who was the first to astutely pick up our maths puzzle and
id that the depth of the ocean is 5.5 kilometers as first mentioned, and not
.5 kilometers! She mentioned this a good deal of humility and so politely
too! Well done Sarah! Mike checked the prop again yesterday, and whilst
over the side he had a look at the depth again. He can confirm, it's a long
way down!
We have sailed 1500 miles and have around 1100 miles to go. We are guessing
that we will arrive around 2nd January in Barbados at the present rate.
Kids are great, adults vary from having had enough sleep to not, and back
again depending on the night shift. Last night was a busy one for Mike with
sudden quick squalls where reefing in and changes in direction were needed.
This was accompanied by torrential rain, a bit like a quick shower. More
inconvenient than a worry, but he ended up very sleep deprived. Skippy, we
have discovered can sleep through anything! He saves himself for the long
haul watch from 4am until I crawl out of the hatch in the morning after
feeding the kids and he crawls downstairs to sleep again. We generally all
meet for lunch for awhile before someone starts the afternoon nap shift!
Skippy and Mike spent all day playing with the genset - which would start and run for a short time then stop abruptly. They completely dismantled it all over the cockpit and were apparently working on the theory of a blocked fuel line. After they put it all back together it was only slightly worse than before! Failing all else they decided to read the instructions and within a few minutes had determined the cause to be a low sump oil level which activated a kill switch when the boat rolled to port. That sorted they made the genset run happily, but then could not produce power! This was eventually traced to a faulty plug connection - so now we are all powered up like a light house with the unit whirring away on the windward foredeck. Halleluiah!
Skippy says Happy Christmas to his Mum! Thank you for lending us your son
this Christmas, we are very grateful!