School at sea- and a test! 30:04.8S 159:33E
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Tue 9 Jun 2015 10:12
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The sea the sea...
It changes face more than anything on earth, at
least within a visible timeframe.
Last night was great, calm and at midnight we had
to start the engine to keep moving at some pace above 3 knots.
This morning the wind picked up enough so we could
hoist the genacker, shut down the engine and enjoy a "stroll in the
park".
Since Erika is done with her math for this semester
I suggested she takes the test. She said no! Then I asked her, "how many 11 year
old Swedish girls have taken a math test on the ocean between New Caledonia and
Australia?"
That made it.
So as not to disturb her Andreas and I went to the
bow and had math and Swedish there. It looked very idyllic, having school on
deck moving forward at 4-5 knots, shadowed by the clouds,
tranquill!
As it was our fifth day out it called for
celebration. But no way could I get the rest of the gang to go aft and take
buckets of salt water over us and then take a warm shower (on aft deck we have a
shower so we can always get rid of salt water before entering the
cockpit).
So we ended up just having the best food the kids
can think of - tortellini with cream sauce and parmesan cheese (freshly grinded
of course!).
Then there was talk of baking a cake but nothing
came out of that either. So to be honest Im not sure it was a
celebration....
But the nice weather made us all feel free and
suddenly you could walk on deck without feeling like a spacewalker in a space
suit and a life harness.
We read, we write, we try to relax before the next
front shows up. Looks like tomorrow night UTC.
For those that read our blog to prepare a journey
on their own.
Why have paper charts on board?
In this digital era very few boats carry paper
charts. I am against it for 2 reasons-
1. A hit from lightning is enough to shut off all
electrical stuff even the backupsystem
2. Paper charts can have a lot of different
information than the plotter charts...
Now I have a third argument:
As I plot our way on a paper chart (1:3,500,000) I
see that 2 reefs will be obscuring our way, they are in the middle of the
ocean.
I zoom in on the chart plotter to find them but no
information. This is interesting since the accident in the Volvo Ocean Race
where they did just that, crashed on a reef in full speed. In this case the
navigator claims you had to zoom down a LOT before it became
visible.
I tried to zoom down on the exact coordinates and
found an area that was marked as shallower, but not reefs.
The reason was that I had not put in the chip for
Australian waters yet and it was on there. Well this is interesting, we are just
in between two waters, on which chart will you find the obstacle?
Who is swapping mini sd cards in the middle of the
ocean to find out?
Well, withing 2 hours we will pass 10nM south
of one of the reefs, now showing on the plotter with the right memory
card...
If you start to wonder where you will find all the
money to buy paper charts and where to stow them I have an advice:
Check out Belington, they print charts on demand,
it makes them up to date and they make them in Black/White very fine resolution
AND
1/3 of a normal chart size. And you can decide to
just print large scale charts. My idea is that without power I can get to
Newcastle, then use a pilot book with descriptions on how to get in... Or wait
for a boat...
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