Position  18:34.43N  31:16.20W

January 11, 2014

The Mahi Mahi arrived at table as a Ceviche starter and lovely poached fillets.  Keep it coming!

Alas, no sail plan would work for Friday night’s weak and finicky winds and we endured banging sails as long as we could.
…a crossing with no motoring was not to be. 

No sooner had we completed our set up for wing on wing, the winds completely died again. At 01:05 AM Saturday the motor had to be turned on.

VERY DISAPPOINTING.  

On the bright side we are now well past Cape Verde, are continuing south west and expect a return of decent winds soon. The calm night did make for blissful sleeping………for a while.

THEN, “What the Heck Was That????”.  
Our sweet dreams were abruptly interrupted by loud CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK, CLUNK and grinding, very scary noises. Something was defiantly wrong with the propeller!
Had we picked up a rope?
Had we picked up a fishing net?
Had barnacles grown on the propeller whilst we had been sailing? (Some say we are slow!)
John asked Cathy if she wouldn’t might just popping under the hull to take a look but didn’t really jump at the chance.

Bob (D) and John pushed the engine hard into forward to see if anything would free..
You could have skied behind the boat!
Then.. HARD REVERSE ..fingers crossed whilst everyone listened.
Would the clunking noise still be there?

WHEW! 
Whatever it was it was cleared. It might well have been barnacles stopping the propeller from fully opening or something caught in the propeller. Guess we won’t ever really know
Crisis averted and all seems well now.

Checking the rigging yesterday showed that everything was nice and secure. But.
Looking half way up the mast showed that our ship’s horn and load hailer had broken loose of it’s bracket and was dangling on it’s wires. Not being keen to climb the mast in 4 meter swells we decided to catch it and secure it with a free halyard from the deck and see how get on. Lets hope the hailer is still there in the morning.

Today we are catching up from the stressful night.
Cathy practiced some yoga in the glorious morning and then did a bit of washing.  The “foot in the bucket method” seemed to work well.
John caught up on sleep.
Books, magazines, iPods and iPads were everywhere.

Tiny squalls were welcome later in the day as they brought extra winds
Mean while we keep heading SW to avoid the high hanging just north of us and find those winds.