Sub Aqua Recycling man goes ferry gliding
X86
Rich Carey
Sat 7 Apr 2018 15:10
I mentioned cleaning the hulls while in Flamenco Marina, but have had a niggling worry ever since about the props. They don't get anti fouled (as the anti foul paint would dissolve super fast), so they do get 'messy' with underwater growth. As I'd been only swimming with mask in Flamenco, I was only able to do a cursory scrape, and that's been really bugging me. So this morning, with no wind and very little swell, I set up all my safety ropes, donned the sub aqua and went over the side for half an hour. Happy to report things look much better in the prop department, and that I didn't get eaten by a Pacific shark, not even chewed on a little.
Keeping up with the recycling every day. My Norwegian friends taught me how to do it, as we crossed the Atlantic. Normally the trash goes in a bin, then the bin bags go in the tender until you reach the desty. You end up with a LOT of bags at the end of a long passage - not so on the ARC. The trick they taught me, was to wash then shred everything (cans get flattened or chucked over as they sink, quickly rust and disintegrate). Man o man, it cuts down the trash bag volume by 90%. Takes some doing, hacking away with the big scissors, but not too bad if you don't let it build up. On this trip I will end up with less than 1 bin bag of rubbish! In fact I'm keeping all the cans this trip. Flattened cans in one bin (I even use my vice to 'super flatten'!), shredded plastic in another. These are then labeled. I also need (all this is 'by mandate'), to put signs around the boat, instructing people on what they cannot do (like opening the holding tanks etc). I can see the point, ref dumb tourists and thoughtless charter groups, but it's somewhat amusing that as I'm single handed, I'm carefully producing and posting the signs - to instruct - myself ...
During the day yesterday the wind was stronger than expected (13knots), so sailed for some of the day. However, the strong currents have been working against me since that wind fell away. The current is over two knots, and my forward speed in only 5 knots on single engine fuel saving. This means we're 'ferry gliding' towards the Galapagos - in other words, I'm pointing 20 to 30 degrees south of the target to compensate for the current. This slows me down quite a bit and I'm having to currently up the revs on the running engine to make modest progress (4.5 knots) - not good fuel saving.
Spent several hours yesterday binge watching Season 1 of 'Travelers'. For 'sci-fi' it's a bit on the cheap side, but there are some clever ideas continually injected, which I always appreciate. The actors/acting is pretty decent also, so all up, it was a good day, except, that I only have Season 1 so it'll now be quite some time before the story resumes for me - binge watching is awesome, but has its disadvantages :-(
All's well on x86, 360 nautical's until I make human contact, in the form of 'The Galapagos Gestapo'!
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