6.45N 80.07W

Monday evening

Motoring more or less S with no wind at all and flat seas. Gulf of Panama is very busy with usually at least 6 vessels on the radar.

Doing 4 knots plus 2 kts current at 1600 rpm, did 115nm yesterday with ??only 12 galls used which is good because we have 785nm to go and 150 galls on board so even if we don’t find any wind, we’ll still get there.

Loo door handle fell off, have set up cables for free-standing generator and repaired the speed/log which somehow had got its cable cut, and freed a seized fuel gauge cap. Progress indeed

Keith

We are in the doldrums, geographically speaking. There is precious little wind and scant sign of any. Fortunately we have so much diesel that we’re not too worried about this state of affairs. It’s not quite Howard’s Way, but at least we might make it to the Galapagos this side of Christmas. Once you can shut out the persistent rumble of the engine (which I find remarkably easy), it’s a beautiful sunny day, on a wide flat sea. There was a lot of traffic last night – container ship slalom in the gulf of panama – but funnily enough they aren’t all headed the same way as us. Today there has been nothing much closer than three or four miles and most of the time it’s been empty ocean. Empty except for a huge school of maybe twenty dolphins (ok, they may have been porpoises – I’m no marine biologist - but they swam, had fins, and weren’t sharks) early this morning. Frankly I don’t know how the Doldrums got such a bad reputation. I’m loving it out here…

There has been a mysterious silence on board about how the loo door handle came off.  It is fixed now and that’s all anyone needs to know. The repairs:breakages index is very high today. This generally heralds peace, prosperity and general happiness.

Guido

The reason we are so full of diesel is that we have a new piece of kit. An Australian bladder which looks like a small li-lo but holds 50 gallons. Only problem was filling it…. All 3 of us got covered in diesel and while we were changing our clothes and washing the deck which resembled an ice rink a plaintive gin palace could be heard on the VHF asking when the sailboat  would vacate the fuel dock !

Otherwise very calm. Roast chicken for Sunday dinner.

Clare