15:39.07N 42:50.38W

Tuesday 9th December 2008.

Its 03:15 in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Genoa is furled and just a little mainsail up to help stop the rolling. We are becalmed and have been since midday yesterday making only thirty four miles and that has been mainly drifting. I spent most of yesterday mending and replacing things. The sea water pump needed replacing, the bilge filters were cleaned etc, etc life goes on. We have just over a thousand miles to run to St Lucia with as promise of some decent trade winds later today, fingers crossed and we can get underway again. I have shut down all the systems I can to conserve as much power as possible and we have halved our generation time to save on fuel. Just popped my head up out of the main hatch and heard the sound like a compressor blowing ,its a school of Dolphin venting on the port beam, they are also squeaking at each other, as they play, frighten the life out of me! The sea is oily calm with not a breath of wind, there is a bright moon reflecting a silvery reflection across the sea. The thunderstorms of last night seem to have abated leaving us trapped in this rolly polly world.

We did see one other ARC yacht yesterday, passing on a course to the North West, he disappeared over the horizon as night fell. Bob had a chat on the VHF with him for a short while and also responded to a call from a German yacht nearby.

It is nearly change of watch time and I can hear Dave is stirring ready to take over, so will update this blog in the morning.

It is now 11:45 UTC  and we have just had breakfast, The morning has been spent motoring on this flat sea, but at least we are moving, We had a problem with the wing fuel tank gauge not recording and have  spent the last three hours tracing the fault, At first I thought it might be the tank sender but that tested fine, we then followed the cable to a junction box where we found the problem, the box had been flooded at some point  and the cable connection corroded in to a green goo, I guess that’s the reaction of the electrical short on the copper wire and salt water creating copper sulphate? Is that right Nick? You are the chemist. Anyway all reconnected and working fine now, the tools are put away and the floorboards back down.

We started the main engine at 09:00 UTC and have been making 6:5 knots to the west since then; we still need to conserve fuel so it will have to be switched off soon. We have just taken our ships clock back one more hour to put us two behind UTC, this is a little early, we should wait to reach h 45 degrees west but this is likely to be during the coming night and would  disrupt the night watches.

 The SSB radio schedule is looming so I will sign off until tomorrow.

Best wishes Paul.