Day 4 - Azores to Dartmouth
Talulah's Web Diary
Paul & Anette Morris
Thu 19 Jun 2008 12:26
Noon, 19th June 2008
It was a great day yesterday - although we didn't move too far. We saw whales, the sun shone, we had fresh bread and cake - and sun-downers. Anette did a great chicken and black bean stir fry, and we also had a little party - playing the 'Dixie Chicks', 'Madonna', 'Pink' and 'Sting' at full blast out here on the empty ocean. "lousy choice of music!" you may say, but it was good to blow away the stress and also boredom of the last few days!
The wind dropped off to almost nothing in the evening and we rolled away our jib-sail to stop it 'flogging' itself to death on the mast, and then we drifted along throughout the night, in a kind of north easterly direction. There is a gale approaching from the west, but, we think (hope?), we'll be far enough east to miss it by Friday evening. If we're not, then it'll be another piece of excitement!
I lost count of the times we reefed and shook out the same reefs in the sails last night, to cope with the changing winds and direction - its good exercise though! And then dawn brought another grey dismal rainy start to the day - and the power to the inverter (which powers the PC), stopped working just before dawn too! So after a cup of tea and a biscuit at 4.30 a.m, I set to work to find the problem. Once again it seems that the bashing we had a few days ago had loosened some of the connections, so after a bit of tightening and re-wiring everything now works again!
We made 131 nautical miles in the last 24 hours, and it looks like we were 'helped' by a current by about 5 miles in the last 24 hours. Although not much happened last night, the wind is up now, and with a huge following swell, we are averaging 6 knots in a 'rolly' sea that slams us now and then. We could go faster by shaking out another reef, but the motion - especially for one of us who is always off watch and trying to sleep - would have been very uncomfortable. 690 miles to run.
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