Galapagos - Marquesas - Day 3 - 02 47.69S 098 19.88W

Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Sun 2 May 2010 21:48
Winds remained light all night, but at 8-10kts were strong enough to sail all the time and give a reasonable speed. With the current with us we had a 24 hour run of 172 miles, which is great - long may it continue! We have slowed a little today as we put out our tow generator for the first time. It slows us down by about 1/2kt, but is putting in 5 to 6 amps continuously, day and night, so for the moment it will stay out, unless a fish decides it's another fish to eat. The turbine (propeller on 30 metres of rope) is quite big so it would have to be a very big fish!

Having come down from 1 degree latitude to close to 3 degrees, we're now trying to go due west. To go too far south at this stage risks losing the current. Going west means having the winds behind the beam, but when they're light we lose speed. So it's a constant balancing act to go where we want to and at the speed we would like.

Have been caught in a couple of squalls and dodged around a few others. The squalls gave an additional 5-10kts of wind and quite bit of rain. Saw what we think were dolphins last night around the boat, but it was before the moon came up and it wasn't possible to be certain. Our swallow-tailed gulls came back again in the night and flew round the boat. We suspect they dropped the small squid that we found on deck. 3 small flying fish made their own way on deck. Used the watermaker this morning and we have full tanks again. We only use the watermaker when in deep water off shore, so when in an anchorage we go in with full tanks and make them last until we leave, or go out to sea for a few hours to make more water. Out here we run it every couple of days to keep the tanks full.

As we're on passage we've started on our passage supplies that we bought from the UK - so we've started the Angel Delights!

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