Third day to Maldives
St Barbara's Web Diary
Peter & Sue Goldsmith
Tue 12 Feb 2008 06:13
6:45N 76:20E
12.00 12th Febuary
This morning is a tranquil one, slipping a long at 5 kts with no sails and
no engiine - we are being towed by Balvenie.
Yesterday was rather different. We spent half the day over a burning hot
engine checking pipes, changing impellors and generally trying to find oout
what was making the engine so hot. Tiring and stressful in this weather and
with little wind forecast we were in for a long trip.
Along came our friends Mark and Amanda in Balvenie and by 5pm we were under
tow and have been ever since. The night passed peacefully with nothing to
do, no noise and no sails to tend. Just the sort of weather my admiral
enjoys.
This mornings excitement came as I was down below. I heard a bump and a
shout. On deck I found that Balvenie had dropped a full can of diesel
overboard and that was the bump against our hull. A full circle and a
clsaaic recovery and the can was back aboard. We continue serenely on our
way.
Assuming nothing changes we anticipate arrival early on Thursady morning.
The job then will be to strip the heat exchanger. For the non technical this
part of the engine passes cool sea water over some tubes containing the hot
fresh water used for cooling the engine. We believe the tubes may be
blocked. Fingers crossed. 200 miles to go.
Well not much has changed since yesterday including our position. We have
had virtually no wind and what there has been has constantly changed
direction.
To make it worse we seem to have an engine overherating problem that is not
yet resolved.
The weather is fine and wind is predicted but the difficulty is we don't
know when! We did at least see a few whales yesterday. Not too close but
close enough to see them blowing and slowwly swimming past us. That and a
few more ships is all. Now it is into a hot engine space to investigate.
Wish me luck!
Miles to go 300, that makes a distance covered of 30 miles since yesterday -
definitely a record as the slowest day so far.