Day 7 - Passage to St Helena
Misterx
Thu 13 Mar 2025 00:38
12/03/25
8:30 pm
Day 7
Atlantic Ocean
DTD : 796 NM
137 NM today, a very good day an all this without moving a muscle. Genoa has
been fully out, no pulling of any rope at all, all day! The wind has been
fairly steady and we've been going at around 5.5, 6 knots and sometimes more
and all this in the right direction. Not anymore, as i get in the driving
seat for the next 4 hour, the wind is slowly decreasing, Only doing about 5
now... Shame, it was a lovely ride. When the wind drops, the waves'
movements are accentuated so it becomes more of a staccato ride and the
genoa starts collapsing which create a big jolting as soon as the wind comes
back and fill the sail up. All in all, not so good... I'll have Ian waking
up more, literally jolted out of his slumber, asking me if everything is ok
much more often.
Good news is, we past the half way mark about 50 miles away, the bad news is
it is looking like the next 850 miles will take us longer than 7 days if the
wind does not pick up a little bit. Don't want too much, just a steady 12
knot would do. Weather Guru not seeing it happening in the immediate future.
We had a bit of drizzle today, nothing major but the sun made a very short
appearance at tea time and went away again, and it has just started raining
again. Getting warm though, no more socks needed.
No Albatross for the last 2 days and no other birds either, the skies are
devoid of life but the flying fishes are having a ball. Big swarms of them
jumping out of the water, skipping just above the waves for a few metres,
and as one dropping back in as if a whistle had sounded... game over, back
in the water you lot!
We both have been pondering the mystery of the fridge, well Ian more than me
to be truthful, he is the engineer after all... So we have a fridge, not big
but sufficiently capacious for our need on long passage. We do cram it to
the brim when we go for long distance and obviously not so much when we have
more regular access to shops. Now, the fridge has been playing up since we
left Mauritius, at which point it was full to the brim. The thermostat
seemed to have given up the ghost, when at the right temperature, it would
not cut out anymore. So the thing was running continuously 24h a day. The
problem is that the fridge is the biggest single item in term of electric
consumption and we have the capacity of producing electricity with wind an
sun, but our producing it is finely tuned to our need. In short, not much
to spare and then if the wind or sun is not there, the batteries won't fill
sufficiently and we have Ian turning off all non essential devices, the
first one being the fridge... which i always find curious given that food
going bad should really distress him! Anyhow, since Mauritius, Ian has
played the role of the human thermostat, switching on and off the fridge
every few hours during the day, depending on the state of the batteries and
definitely turning it off during the night. As you can imagine this state of
affair has led to a fair few discussions, especially first thing in he
morning when i open the fridge to get the breakfast yogurt out and find that
it has gone bad, and the smell is not so pleasant in there. To be fair,
we've had a look for a new thermostat in SA but we have an antique (or should that be, antic) of a fridge
and we have not been successful in that quest.
So we stock up for our long passage, fully expecting that some of it will
not survive as we will need to switch of the fridge for long period of
time... and then, out of the blue, the thermostat has come back to life, as
suddenly as it had died out. And we know this because the gentle purr of the
compressor has been the sound background of our life on board for the last
diddly dum years and it shuddering into life has been the metronome. A few
theories have been produced but none too convincing, and we have been left
scratching our heads... well Ian more than me to be truthful, he is the
engineer after all, me, I am just grateful not to be greeted by the awful
smell of yogurt going off every morning!
Should you have any idea that would help solving the mystery of the fridge,
so Ian can stop scratching his head, pop your suggestions on a postcard,
please.
M