4:29:09S 109:47:59W Day 7
The Adventures of Sunboy the Sailboat
Al Sparkes and Deb Swain
Sun 30 May 2010 14:48
Hi everyone, reporting from the navigation station on board Sunboy as we
have just about ended our first week on our longest passage to date.
Currently the conditions are again really great. The sun rose this morning
to a cloudless sky and again we were blessed last night with a big moon to
follow along throughout the evening. Not as much wind last night but we
still made pretty good time, doing 92 miles from 5.00pm to 5.00am. At the
moment we have winds of about 15 knots true and the seas are about 2 metres,
occasionally 3 metres. The seas and winds are now bascically coming from
the same angle so overall it is relatively comfortable and the boat is not
heeled over very much at all, just the occasional roll to make you dance
around the place if you are not sitting down or having a lay down. We are
sailing at about 120 degrees apparent which is a really pleasant wind angle
so we are happy with that. We are sailing a bit above the rhumb line as we
expect the wind to go more to our stern the closer we get so we want to try
and keep it at this angle or maybe even a bit above if we can so we can keep
our speed and comfort levels up.
Big excitement yesterday afternoon as we broke another Sunboy record, making
204 miles from 5.00pm to 5.00pm which is just fantastic, even more so as
this distance was on the rhumb line to our destination. Ever since we have
been on board we have always wanted to crack the magic 200 mile mark and
everyone was very chuffed as it really is, may I have the liberty to use the
boring phrase, " a real team effort", 4 people doing watches twice in the 24
hour period means everyone contributed to keeping the boat speed up with the
sails trimmed well and keeping on course.
So for the first week on passage we have sailed 1236 miles and we are hoping
to reach the halfway mark sometime tomorrow all going well.
Another really good day on board yesterday, and to give you a bit of an idea
of what we do with our time I'll run through our little schedule. My
evening watch is from 3.00am to 6.00am and at the moment the Sun is
generally coming up about 6.15am so I tend to stay on watch a bit longer,
let Nikki have a bit more sleep and then wake her up and have a cup of
coffee with her, talking about life and all associated things as we watch
the sun dawn into a new day. Yesterday Nikki made porridge for breakfast
with brown sugar and cream and that was just the best. Normally we have
cereal but porridge was a real treat. Nikki finishes her watch at 9.00am
and then Lukey comes on deck for his 9 to 12 noon watch, during which time,
he goes all over the boat to check and double check the rigging and all
associated gear and it is always a relief to hear him come back and say,
"all good." During his watch, Debsy and Layni normally wake up and often we
are all up in the cockpit together, sharing breakfast and nattering away.
Deb's covers the 12 noon to 3.00pm watch and if we feel like having lunch,
this is the watch period we generally have it and basically whoever feels
like lunch the most prepares it. Yesterday however, Deb's pitched in and
made these brilliant toasties out of tortillas filled with leftover spag bol
sauce from the night before and then she folds them over and fries them on
the grill plate, they are just the best and as we wanted more she then made
some out of peanut butter, sweet chilli sauce and cucumber slices. That
effort gave her an early mark from her watch and then I take over at 3.00pm
to run through to 6.00pm and during this watch dinner is prepared while
there is still light and normally we have the chance to all have dinner
together up in the cockpit as the sun sets. Layni had us in rapture yesterday with her 'designer day' where she desgined Debs these wonderful shoes, dresses and handbags and then set about selling them to her and arranging payment in the U.S and delivery back to Coffs Harbour. Layn was on fire yesterday and as she normally spends so much time pottering about in her cabin it was just great so see her spend almost all of the day up in the cockpit with us.
Deb's did a double whammy and
prepared another super supper of Thai noodles, braised pork fillet and
steamed rice, backed up with vanilla icecream and chilled strawberries.Go
Debsy!!! Well the icecream is not norgenvasse but for on passage it is
pretty good. We bought packets of icecream mix in the Galapagos and you
simply add the powder to a cup of milk, beat the hell out of it and then put
it in the freezer until it sets. Our strawberries come from a can but they
are of excellent quality and the syrup they come in makes a nice topping for
the icecream. So well done Debsy on Chez Sunboy. Took Lukey and I a fair
bit of time to do all the washing up after the days efforts but considering
how spoilt we had been it wasnt a problem.
Nikki does the 6.00pm to 9.00pm watch and this is a pretty good watch as you
have dinner at the start and then it seems like no time and your off to bed.
Fortunately by doing the set watches, your body clock does get into a rythm
and getting to sleep is pretty easy, especially with the good conditions we
are having. I still sleep up in the cockpit, mainly because it is the most
comfortable place on the boat to sleep with my self inflating air mat, big
cushions, pillow and sleeping bag. It also means that there are two people
'on watch' during the night should anything need to be done. I dont say I
have the deepest sleeps possible as you tend to wake up with every change in
wind strength or adjustments in boat speed but you still have pletnty of
rest.
We still havent caught any fish as we have still been running the tow
generator all the time and so far it has been meeting our power needs with
the only time we have run the engine is to heat up the hot water for washing
up or one of our sponge showers. As we dont have a watermaker, our water
supply is very limited and we just dont have enough for the luxury of a nice
hot shower as often as we would like. Simple process is we put some water
in the basin in the bathroom, grab a sponge and shower gel, have a good old
scrub and then a quick rinse off. I guess we would use about 2 - 3 litres
of water each this way but it does feel so good afterwards so you can just
imagine how brilliant it is when we have unlimited hot water and can have a
'normal' shower. We have been hoping for the occasional rain cloud to
appear but no such luck yet. I would estimate we still have about 400
litres of water on board so that should see us through to the Marquesas
quite easily and if we get some more on the way then happy days.
Well time to crack off and go and enjoy the morning.
Take care.