Cape Town, South Africa to Luderitz, Namibia - Day 2
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Wed 5 Dec 2012 10:37
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28:48.946S 15:42.141E
December 5, 2012
For want of cool water.
Not for us - we've got plenty - but for the
generator. Remember when Don had to do battle with the generator's cooling
pump for hours while Harmonie was buffeted around by big Indian Ocean seas
on the way to Mauritius? Last night was a repeat performance.
Although this time it was dark and Harmonie was rolling to and fro
rather ambitiously, it was not the two hour washing machine session from
hell Don endured during that memorable Mauritius passage. However, the
timing could have been better. At 8:30pm, a half-hour before Don's first
3-hour sleep session, Don went down into the engine room to fire up the
generator and check that the cooling pump was cooling properly. It
wasn't. After big sighs and a few expletives from both of us, I rolled out
of bed to start an early night watch while Don descended into the rolling pit to
change out the pump. We bought a new pump while home this summer, and
carried it lovingly back to South Africa in our hand luggage (causing a fair
number of Syracuse, Detroit, Amsterdam and Johannesburg airport security guard's
eyebrows to raise in the process) just for this purpose. Aside from the
sparkly new pump brought from home, we do have another spare on
board, but like the one Don removed last night, it also seems to
enjoy chewing up impellers - either that or the impellers themselves are
substandard. Either way, after an hour in the dark and rolling engine
room, Don installed the new pump (with new impeller), and all was well.
Hopefully this will be the end of the generator water cooling pump story for a
good long while.
Other than that, all is well.
We are still sailing nicely with the wind behind us, and did
the same for all of yesterday and last night. There were ten or
twelve hours when the wind was a blowing a good 25 to 30 knots and kicking
up some white, frothy seas behind us, but aside from a little saltwater
spray in the cockpit (outside our 'back door') and a little more rolling
than we would have preferred, all was fine as we
sailed fast. The wind is down to a perfect 20 knots from the south,
and should stay that way through our arrival in Luderitz tomorrow
(Thursday, 12/6) morning.
More after our Luderitz arrival.
Anne
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