Laundry
Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Wed 18 Apr 2012 18:04
Not much change here. We're still heading SW, and the south equatorial current and the wind are still moving us NW off course, about 15 degrees from our heading. Yesterday afternoon it got so rolly that I changed the heading to due west while we cooked dinner (curry with rice, potato, tomato, onion, carrot, and cabbage). While we ate the sun set spectacularly behind a herd of dark, low rain clouds. But fortunately we were spared rain during the night. The wind calmed down too a little, and in the morning the sea followed. So until a few minutes ago it was actually nice sailing, and Liz said that she's almost happy! But now the wind is picking up again, and it's getting more rolly. Well, that's life on the boat. We're looking forward to getting the wind and current from further east in a few days. But for the moment all we can do is hold on. Something I didn't do very well yesterday, and as I toppled over I broke the screen of my kindle ebook reader. Not good. That's definitely something where paper books are still way ahead. Only problem is carrying them all, we read a lot.
But there's good news too: with all the wind and sun we have power to spare, and so we can run watermaker and fridge. The batteries and tanks are full and the beer is cold. Definitely three very positive things! Almost makes me forget about the kindle. Maybe if I drink enough beer, hehe. Better not. With enough power to run the desalinator we have so much water that I even started to do the laundry this morning (what else do you do without a book). Laundry on Gudrun works like this: All the clothes go into a big bucket of water, plusdetergent, and then stomp it madly with a big plunger.
Liz has her watch set to ring the alarm every twenty minutes. Then she jumps up, shouts "Check for boats and dolphins", and looks around. Very commendable and cute, but other than a few flying fish and squid on the deck every morning we haven't seen any marine life since Sunday. And no boats either. I tried to listen to the shortwave cruiser's net yesterday to learn where all the other boats the left the Galapagos (maybe ten last week) are, but got only static. Anyway: greetings to everbody out there. Have a great day, whether on boat or ashore.