Day 10 - Passage to the Caribbean
Misterx
Thu 10 Apr 2025 23:31
10/04/25
8:30 pm
Day 10
South Atlantic Ocean
DTD : 2,602 NM (131NM)
The Bird Gazette
Only 2 birds on residence now, we can hear the squabbling at night but not so loud, and they were gone by sunrise. We are still putting the tarpaulin out, save on the cleaning up in the morning to a certain extend. Still a bit disconcerted by the demise of the 3 yesterday... wondering what has happened, but i guess we'll never know... it might just has been exhaustion... hoping it is nothing more...
The charging of the batteries is still an issue and uncovering the solar panel on deck has not yielded the results we were expecting. So back to the drawing board, we've cleaned the panels again and the connectors, and it seem to have had an impact... not back up to 100% but getting there, we've had some lovely sunny days, with a bit of clouds but not so bad, we should have full batteries especially as we have now turned off any unnecessary devices. And that includes the fridge which fortunately/unfortunately has not much fresh food left in there! The state of the battery has also prevented us from making water, but tomorrow we will have to get the engine running to fill up one of the tank. We have to make water every 5 days according to the owners' manual, or at least flush the system, and tomorrow is the day. Still have plenty of water, the other tank is full and we have over 100 litres in Jerry cans. We calculated that we consume about 10/15 litres a day between us... and yes I am very profligate, i do use fresh water for washing up the dishes... much to Ian's disappointment. When we got the boat all these years ago, he wanted to install a second tap on the sink for salt water, I did tell him I wouldn't use it and if he installed it, he would have to do the washing up! so he didn't!
To add insult to injury, not only do i use fresh water, but i also use hot water, using gas we might need for cooking... very, very profligate... Washing dishes in salt water is awful, even if you rinse, there is that film on the crockery and I swear the food taste different, and nothing gets clean unless it is washed in hot water ... it's all in your ahead says Ian ... might be but my perception is my reality, and when it is my turn doing the washing up, I do it as I please, fresh hot water is my preference!
We've had a clock change again today, and this time all the clocks were altered and i was the lucky one to get an extra hour of sleep... Ian's turn next.
Still moving apace, at a very confortable 6 knots. Watching the miles go down steadily, long may it last!
We do like uneventful day at sea, where the only worry we have is how much bird poo will we have to clean up in the morning!
M