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.