Wednesday 6.30 p.m. 24.48N,21.44W
Moonshine
Wed 29 Nov 2006 20:11
Today , not so.
We had two breakages today. The gooseneck fitting on the headsails, and the autohelm. We spent a lot of time hove to with the steering dismantled and wheel off, repairing things. The autohelm is now repaired, and we have assembled a makeshift repair kit for the gooseneck.We will not repair that until it finally parts. We are now motoring in next to no wind. Such a shame as we were making good time up to lunchtime today.
We caught a big fish this morning, but only briefly. It declined to come aboard. We then trailed lines all day, forgot we had them out, and as we were clearing up from a magnificent dinner, caught the biggest Dorado I have seen. It took all three of us to get it over the side.
We had just eaten fillets of Dorado, with cheese and blackpepper sauce, rice and sweetcorn, and the idea of putting that much more fish in the fridge (it would have filled the fridge completely) was not appealing (we were full) so we filmed it, and threw it back. Chances are that fish will never see another lure.
We have settled into a sort of routine that works for us. The shift system runs from 8 p.m. till 8 a.m.With the night being split into 3 hour shifts, one on watch,one standby, one sleeping, and then repeat. During the day we are all awake. The person on watch tends to snack during the watch, so overnight eating is not social. We are instead having breakfast together at about 10 a.m., usually only cereal, and then our main meal at about 4 p.m.We have tried eating round the table, but spent too much time catching flying dishes, so eat in the cockpit, but off our laps.
Ah yes, we had another loss today. Alun threw half the forks over the side in a bucket of water.We're down to our last three.
To conserve water we wash dishes twice. A prewash in seawater in the cockpit, and then again in a little fresh hot water in the galley.
Alun was doing the prewash - oops.
The gooseneck breakage was my fault, so Dave has a turn now.
We had a pidgeon try to land on deck today. It made several passes, changed its mind, and landed in the water, sat there for a while then took off and flew away. I didn't know they could do that.
We had our first position report today. It placed us132nd as of noon yesterday. This is a 'corrected' position according to handicap. All that will change day by day.
We will keep you posted
Rod Dave and Alun SY Moonshine
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