Galatea heads west into doom... Mike reporting

S/V Galatea update
Neil Scott
Fri 15 May 2015 11:52
Good news! After escaping the Bermuda Triangle squall described by Chris in our last update we've experienced some further nail-biting moments. As Chris mentioned, we'd discovered our wind-vane self steering system had dislocated some vital cogs making it unusable, a problem the manufacturer's manual said was a "return to factory" repair job  (in USA - not exactly an option for us!!). We'd been waiting for the longer ocean legs before setting up the wind-vane and had thus far been using the our computerized auto self-steering system. With the wind-vane now out of action we had no option but to continue with the computer auto system, the downside of it being that it sucks a lot of power from our batteries and is noisy. No problem! Until within hours, very late in the afternoon, darkness nearly upon us, the computerized steering system started making some nasty sounding grinding pre-failure noises in its mechanics connecting to the rudder. At the time we were running with a huge swell (12 ft) plus cross seas, with a 20-25kt apparent following breeze. It was decided the only option was to dissemble the auto steering motor and associated linkages, pull them out and inspect them. Bottom line; it was a hair raising two and half hours - a totally pitch black night, no moon, overcast, running with huge seas like the above mentioned 12 ft swell, Chris did a fantastic job hand steering as Galatea surfed, the danger being a broach or a gybe. Meantime, Neil was crammed upside down, fetal position, in a cavity at the rear of the hull beneath the cockpit, (Don't worry folks, I was safely assisting from above finding and handing him tools.) Eventually out came the offending parts for inspection. With the big seas running it would have been catastrophic if the boat had broached. But Chris was up to it, the main suspect part was found to be ok and we cleaned it, oiled it and replaced it, the noises were no longer to be heard. All was well. 
With the fear lingering upon us the auto steering system could breakdown again we had a "brain storm session" session on how to fix up the wind vane and with Neil as chief physical risk taker - we made him wear his PSD - we did what the manufacturer said was impossible and fixed it at sea? It's now working fine and saving us 6 amps an hour in electricity that the auto steering would have been using, also saves hand steering for days if the auto had have broken down again.
Since then we had our electric battery charge regulator lose its mind and had to replace it with a new one. The new one in turn wouldn't hold a program, wouldn't operate. Faced with this new problem we quickly worked out an emergency low energy plan switching off the fridge, autopilot and water pump, and mapped out a new route heading, direct to Mauritius. You don't realize how much you depend on electric power until faced with the prospect of not having it. With the emergency plan enacted, we continued to work on the new regulator setup, contacted the makers in the US via sat phone and got the advice that the new model sometimes had problems with an "over sensitive" magnetic read programming switch causing it to flip out into a nonsense mode if too near a strong enough electro magnetic field. Fortunately, the regulator tested ok, isolated from its usual position in the engine bay and now sits on the floor of my cabin in a tupperware container that protects it's sensitive little soul. 
It took 2 days to fix it but now we are back on the road!!

General: Its not cold here but has been rainy on occasion, overcast most days with numerous rain squalls and we've had to work hard to find the right winds to get us west where are now, 80.00 W, 11.30 S. We originally needed to sail in a north westerly direction up from 09.30 S to about 08.00 S at one point and now heading SW aiming for 12.00 S, how far depending on what wind we find there, hopefully the forecasted SSW's to get us up to Chagos at 05.00 s (72.00E). There's a low pressure system (no wind or light head winds) blocking us from simply heading from here at straight to Chagos. We're hoping the low doesn't turn into anything bigger, if it does we'll head even further south to avoid the area completely and give Chagos a miss. If all's well but we still don't find the right winds to get us to Chagos in time to spend at least a few days there we'll also head straight to Mauritius, maybe sailing by but not likely stopping at, Rodriguez, a lonely island out there somewhere... 
All that being said, the very latest high quality weather forecast we had a few days ago from a US company called Commander Weather Services appeared to be favourable to both our safety and chances of making it to Chagos with good winds and moderate seas but the actuality is that the forecast was wrong and we are blocked by the lingering above mentioned low which has extended south cutting off our progress. Maybe Chagos will not on option for us and we'll have to head direct to Mauritius.

The seas here have been immense at times with awesome swell/waves hovering, menacingly, 4 ft or so above (but behind) the top of the cockpit roof (roof is at least 10 ft off the waterline!!!) when we've been running with the South easterly trades. The Indian Ocean is an amazingly large area, is amazingly deep (miles) as well as being a very lonely place except for a number of Terns, a couple of high flying Frigates and a few Flying fish - we haven't seen another boat or ship of any kind for many days. We saw two small fishing boats and two jet planes on some obscure route well over a week ago...
The Indian also has the darkest, brightest, bluest water I've ever seen, Chris agrees (Neil is snoozing but I think he agrees too), now I understand how Indian Ink got its name. Beautiful.  
Must get some sleep now. Wait on...Chris has just pointed out the amazing phosphorescence in our side wake tonight.... It really is magical here ... Like riding a magic carpet..

Love and best wishes to all,
Mike, Neil and Chris

- S/V Galatea
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