Lat: 23:56.0. N : Long: 60:37.6 W.

7^th June, 2014 – Noon Position, South-East of Bermuda, North Atlantic. Heading for Turkey, via the Azores.

Dear All,

Well, this has been a 24 hours of contrasts. First off, notwithstanding the vcarious theories offered elsewhere, the Skipper decided he needed to discover the real reason why the bilge pump could be heard cycling on and off so often. There was nothing coming in from up forward, so starting to look aft, alongside the galley, quickly revealed a farly steady trickle of seawater coming in through the top of the seawater inlet manifold for the freezer! There was a good 4" of seawater sloshing around in the bilge area and this was eventually finding its way into the bilge pump deep sump forward.

Urgent action was needed, to avoid soaking all our underfloor stores, not to  mention anything worse if the bilge pump stopped working! So we set to to try to reseal the cover. No more spare O -rings on board for this important bit of kit, however, so we had to make do with the old one. 

Really though, the nub of the problem was that one of the four holding bolts had stripped its thread somehow - perhaps through having been over-tightened during our brief period ashore, when all seacocks were checked and though-hulls were cleaned out? A serious issue, nonetheless, as this piece of kit could be shut off from the sea, by its large 2" seacock, but then we would have no true deep-freeze facility left on board, as the air-cooled back-up compressor could not be expected to deal with the full loads of both fridge and freezer in these air & water temperatures.

Fortunately, just for once, Alan's massive set of on-board 'just-in-case' spares did come in useful. Jason suggested we through-bolt the cover, with a longer, thinner bolt, in place of the now useless loose bolt, and we were able to fabricate a suitable one from a long length of threaded studding he had bought previously in Grenada, two years  earlier. Solution found, but, with an old O-ring still in place water continued to seep through into the bilge, slower, but coming in still. Jason resolved that by applying loads of black sealant to the O-ring and that finally did the trick. Now we do need those new rings to get to us in the Azores! This won't wait.

Following that a lovely chili con carne was served up by Nelius for supper and the leftovers provided us with both breakfast and lunch snacks, believe it or not. Progress continued to be swift and comfortable throughout last night, with regular speeds over 8.5 knots showing on our SOG. 

This morning the breeze softened up just a touch and we set full sail at midday.

Nelius hauled down the Antiguan courtesy flag for the last time, very battered and worn. Then we sat in the cockpit and watched with awe at the beautiful flight of a Great Shearwater, which glided around and about us for the best part of half an hour. At times one could swear its beak was touching the water in front at the same time as one wingtip was also skimming the sea surface, as it wheeled through and round the waves.

Later this afternoon a White-Tailed Tropic Bird flew past, searching for squid morsels in  the sea below.

A "sailing yacht" got called up by a large Tanker ("Torm Neches", on its way to Lagos) on the VHF asking if it would take the ship's photo and email it to the Watch Officer! We said we would be pleased to, but did he know he was still some 12 miles away from us! He had thought we were answering as the small sailing yacht he had just passed, but we had responded to his radio call not knowing of the other's existence. Anyway, this started off a pleasant afternoon's radio chit chat with both him and then another yacht a few miles further away asking if we had any weather information.

Now it is still very hot dow below, but lovely and splendid sailing conditions on deck. We are sailing on a close reach, trying to maintain speed and get a little more to the East, in accordance with Chris Tibbs's weather routing advice of this morning. The motion of the boat is just super, as we are sailing along the length of these waves, not banging against them, nor rolling along down them. Sea state is only just moderate to fair, with wave height generally very low.

The flying fish still don't know how to avoid us, hioewver, and we have had 'hits' to the starboard shroud and the RIB cover, with one large 'Exocet' as the French delight in calling them, found laying in the windward scuppers getting hot.

Current SOG is 8.5 knots and COG is 032M, which is all good and just what the doctor ordered.

We now hope to be able to avoid the headwinds of the next Low coming across from the US and come round onto a North-Easterly course around the Azores High later tomorrow, as the predicted wind veers and slackens off.