18:38.47N 30:36.43W

Tuesday 2nd December 2008

Since my last blog Bob has been honing his fishing skills with some success, Last evening we had a grand fish (Dorado)  supper with the fish baked with fresh limes( despite the best efforts of the oven turning itself off) with garden peas and potatoes wedges, Well done Bob.

The night was very quiet with wind little more than a light breeze from the south at 8 knts.Our progress has been painfully slow, with only eighty miles achieved since noon to 09:00am this morning,

We changed our sail configuration at 08:30 from the twin Genoas that we have had up virtually since Las Palmas to a Genoa and main on the starboard tack. This has improved our speed to between 6/7 knots over the ground on a better course of 270 degrees due west, if we discount the variation of 13 degrees west.

Nick was on breakfast duty and served up an excellent scrambled eggs on toast with a steaming mug of tea, just what we all needed to kick start the day.

Bob moved to the main saloon to sleep last night, it seemed to work miracles, he slept for six hours straight, It's a close call weather we prefer the dulcet burble of the generator or Bob at rest ,I will take a pole on that later. He does seem a lot happier this morning so I recon it's worth it.

We changed time zone this morning going back one hour from U.T.C havening travelled 15 degrees west (thank you John, Capt B, see I was listening some of the time)before reaching St Lucia we will have to go back a further three hours for local time to avoid sun rise being at lunch time.

I have been running the generator for about six to eight hours for the last couple of days, we are trying to be more careful with our energy use. On Sunday morning I discovered the house (domestic batteries so flat they would not start the generator, since then our management has been much better and we are slowly putting a little back each day.

The water maker is performing well, keeping our main tank topped up with very potable water. We changed our gas supply over yesterday in the hope that the propane( was butane) will be a higher pressure and enable us to use the stove to its capacity, but we still have a problem when we use all the rings an oven together. We also had a problem with the regulator on the bottle being blocked but again our young engineer, James came to the rescue, discovering a salt crystal had blocked the breather hole, now it works a treat!

Let's hope the trade winds are on their way back with an overcast sky and a humid 30 degrees, we could do with a 15 knotter from the S to S.E to speed us on our way to paradise. 

Best wishes to you all from the contented crew of Libertad, heading slowly west.

Paul