Saint Helena to Fernando de Noronha - Day 8 1315 (1415 UTC -1)
Vega
Hugh and Annie
Fri 24 Mar 2023 14:20
10:55.78S 19:03.22W COG 280T SOG 5.5kts Wind SE 10kts Another beautiful sunny day. It was a clear night with wonderful stars. We had a wonderful venison sausage casserole for supper that included the sausage from the farmers market in Cape Town and a fresh chilli given to us by Colin, one of the ferry boatmen in St Helena. In fact Colin gave us a big bag of them from his garden, assuring me that they weren’t very hot. He was very amused that I tried one that evening and thought I might end up in the hospital with third degree burns. I gave half the chillis to another boat and half the remainder are now drying in the sun which leaves us 20 or so fresh ones still to use. Colin is a lovely man, a touch irascible with yachties arriving late for the last ferry ride, and we were very sad to hear that he was due to fly to Johannesburg for treatment for a recurrence of cancer. The casserole was cooked by me by the way but whichever one of us cooks Annie has a store of recipes for reference and we really enjoy our meals on board. A tasty, comforting supper at sundown is a daily highlight for us. Our schedule usually follows the outline below which is a pretty typical day on passage. We find it important to have a structure within which to establish settled watch and sleep patterns. Others may do things differently but the principle of a routine is likely to be similar. For example Robin Knox Johnson needs eight hours sleep a night and this remains the case on board, single handed or not. Other single handed racers may alternate sleep and watches in, say, 20 minute periods throughout 24 hours or overnight. Cruising couples usually have set watch and sleep patterns. Because Annie has more problems sleeping we have found that allowing her 7 hours in bed, sometimes interrupted for urgent sail changes, will give her enough sleep in 24 hrs, with an occasional nap during the day. We try to alternate making supper though Annie usually makes lunch whilst Hugh does any necessary boat maintenance. 0000 - 0030 Annie is still on watch and will make the 0000 log book entry. Annie will brief Hugh on anything to be aware of from her watch and together we will make any necessary sail changes. 0030 - 0730 Annie is in bed, hopefully sleeping. Hugh is on watch. Regular checks for other boats, course, wind strength and direction. Write blog posts and emails. Listen to music and podcasts. Regular coffees, occasional snacks. 0600 log book entry. Email position update to Des Cason, download latest GFS weather forecast for next five days over wide area. 0730 - 0930 Cups of tea and breakfast together. Download latest LuckGrib detailed weather forecast and review routing. Raise Duogen (if sunny). 0930 - 1130 Hugh is sleeping, Annie is on watch plus chores, cleaning, make bread, write up diary and blog posts, emails, read. 1130 - 1300 Coffee. Review course and sailplan. Boat repairs and maintenance. 1200 log book entry. Make lunch. 1300 - 1430 Lunch (usually mixed salad, cheese, eggs, sometimes leftovers from supper). Plan supper. 1430 - 1530 Hugh on watch, Annie resting. 1530 - 1730 Boat maintenance, equipment check, scrabble, cups of tea and cake. Check weather, agree overnight sailplan and make sail changes if needed. If necessary Hugh may get extra sleep. 1730 - 1900 Prepare and eat supper (using any available fresh vegetables and also food from freezer plus lentils, pasta, rice etc) with music in the cockpit whilst we watch the sun set. 1800 log book entry. 1900 - 2000 Film or TV series in the saloon interrupted by regular watch checks. 2000 - 0000 Annie is on watch, emails, read, soduko etc, Hugh is sleeping. Today we have raised the Duogen, repositioned the forward solar panel, taken one reef out of the mainsail meaning there is just the first reef now. We could have put all the mainsail out but we have a forecast of gusts to 20+kts and as we are maintaining a comfortable 5+kts the one reef is fine. We have also run through our man overboard drill, including how we get the overboard man back on board (man because our assumption is that it is more likely to be me). We tested the emergency beacon on Annie’s lifejacket recently and were impressed by its ability to make a call on our radio - loudly - and then appear as an AIS target on our plotter for retrieval. We will test my beacon this afternoon. I will run though our MOB procedure in a later post. EmilyLuna is around 90nm behind with an ETA at Fernando next weekend 1st or 2nd April. We should be arriving on Saturday 1st April. I hope this has been a suitably domestic post. Non-sailors tell me they don’t like or understand the technical stuff. Sailors tell me they really like the technical stuff. I’ll try and beef up the domestic bits for the non-believers but really you need both for the full picture of life on board. When on land I like to make social or political commentary but what really gets me into hot water is commentary on the politics back in the UK. Maybe it’s bad enough suffering it without having to read about it from me. I can tell you though that watching events from afar gives a very interesting and painful view of the self inflicted political and economic decline of the UK. Without any internet access to regular news some may be thankful that I am not in a good position to comment further at this point! SY Vega |