Talulah's Log - 688 miles to St Lucia
Talulah's Web Diary
Paul & Anette Morris
Tue 12 Dec 2006 18:57
position "14:26.444N
49:06.240W"
Tuesday 12th
December 2006
The
day started with an alarm! I was off-watch still asleep at 0730
(twilight still), when Anette came to tell me that a Squall was approaching and
we still had the parasail spinnaker up! Well you can imagine I shot out of
bed and began the quickest hauling down of a spinnaker that has ever been on
Talulah! Well, the squall came and went - and we avoided it for the
most part - feeling kind of cheated that we had not been rewarded for our quick
spinnaker work!
Then
- No Wind!! (The parasail spinnaker was hauled down - it actually
came down on it's own as there was absolutely no breeze at all!).
This was to last more or less the whole day, as we bobbed around in the heat of
31 degrees, trying hard not to start our diesel engines and burn precious
fuel. So we made the most of the day with a "Make and
Mend". This is an old British Navy _expression_ dating from the days
of Nelson, when free time was given to the crew to make and mend their clothes
and other personal items - or to take some time off! Our Make &
Mend started with me making up 3 x 30 amp fuses that had 'blown' on our battery
charger (I had none in reserve so had to 'make' them up), to Anette fixing and
mending the batons in the mainsail cover, sewing the clasps back on the
spinnaker snuffer and other small tasks. - (Baking more bread being one of
them!!)
Then
when we did start our engines, we found that the sacrificial anode on the
starboard saildrive was rattling around!!! ( I'll fix this at St
Lucia!!). Then, in the process of getting ready for engine
propulsion, I pulled in the turbine of the water generator, and found that
"something" with big teeth had already had a 'bite' at it, thinking obviously
that it was food! The rope was very neatly severed just at the
turbine, and only held on by a few strands. Remind me not to go
swimming here.......whatever it was must have been BIG!
We've put the clocks back another hour, we're now 3 hours behind UK
and 4 behind Europe, I topped up the diesel tanks with our last reserves of
fuel, and then we had siesta........
P.S.
The generator seems to working properly now - obviously the "proper bollocking"
it had from me worked........(?)