15/1/08 15:00

We put up the Spinnaker and managed to wrap it around the forestay as we still had the bimini up blocking the view from the cockpit.  Steve went aloft and cleared it quite quickly.  No harm done, apart from Nik’s arm muscles as we winched Steve up by hand.  I did a few bits in low gear and Nik did most of it in High gear with a few breaks. We furl the Bimini and carry on with the Parasail.  Boat speed improves to 7 knots.  This is the first time we’ve set this sail with only three people. And the sail seems to be working better that the last time we used it.

16:00  With a bit more sail trim and a small wind increase, we’re back to 8.5 knots boat speed. 

20:00 We drop the Spi over fears of sheet chafing and carry on poled out at nearly the same speed.

21:00 The sou chef makes spaghetti bolognaise which is pleasantly spicy but it makes him blow his nose a lot.

15/1/08  03:00

Cold clear damp night.  The wind has turned North, you need several layers in the cockpit and the spray hood windows mist up. I find a hat and I never wear hats. Soon we’ll be able to turn off the cockpit fridge.

We’re still poled out, making reasonable speed but pushing at least a knot of current.  This is because we’re inshore a lot farther than we would be if we were going direct to Port Stanley without making our Westing.

The wind is due to turn West this afternoon and by the evening we get 24 hours of strong Southerlies, so we’ll have wind and current against us. Great.

10:45

The wind has now gone NNW so we’ve dropped the pole. A cold front has come through and it’s bright clear cloudless and nippy.  I just had porridge for breakfast.

3 times this morning the navigation system started beeping loudly claiming it has lost the GPS fix.  This hasn’t happened for some time and seems to be a feature of Raymarine.  I even turned on a second GPS and switched between them to no avail. There is nothing wrong with either of the GPSs. The beeping goes on for a minute or so and then clears itself, it is really irritating, for good measure I restart the Max Sea computer program as it was showing an incorrect position, a frozen one from the last time it got a good information.

We acquired a hitch hiker this morning.  He doesn’t look like a sea bird and he’s almost 200 miles offshore.

As I write this, the bloody "lost GPS" beeps start again, only for 30 seconds this time.

And then the blankety blank bilge alarm goes of.  This is like being locked in the cupboard with the siren of your home burglar alarm. Fortunately turning it off and on again stops the racket. A morning of false alarms.

13:00