06:34S 93:05W 

 

miles covered last 24 hours 171

 

 

After 36 hours of fairly lumpy and uncomfortable conditions we were both rather grumpy.  It’s just impossible to do anything when it’s like this – everything requires huge effort.   I managed to handwash a few things and David tied himself on and hung them out on the lifeline – within minutes we’d taken on a huge wave and they were saturated with saltwater!  It would take a gale to stop David making our morning coffee...every day at 11 he religiously turns out a fantastic cup of espresso with hot, frothy milk, no matter what the conditions.  I managed to force myself in the galley to make a banana cake to go with it – all our bananas have ripened at once so we’re busy eating as many as we can.

 

Yesterday afternoon, after studying the grib files at length, we opted to alter course and come around and start heading west.  We’d been heading due south for two days in an effort to get down into the trade wind belt and avoid the ITCZ (inter tropical convergence zone) which is full of thunderstorms and squalls.   Altering course brought the wind more aft and within a few hours the waves seemed to get kinder and the wind settled at around 18 knots.  Suddenly things started to get a bit easier although it’s still rolly.  Hopefully we’ve turned the corner – literally.

 

While David  was off watch sleeping yesterday afternoon I noticed sails on the horizon.  Southern Cross, who we left Cristobal with, had disappeared from our sights the day before but on our morning radio sked they weren’t that far away.  I hailed them on VHF and sure enough it was them.  Odd to be in such a vast ocean and see friends just a few miles away.   We saw their light in the night but by this morning we were again many miles apart.

 

Meanwhile, more banal matters – dunce of the day prize on Bandit today goes to me.  I opened the washing machine to find it full of clothes I’d washed after our island tour.....four days ago.  Amazingly it didn’t smell too much and so we hung it up in the saloon and it dried. 

 

We just had 3 strikes on the fishing lines but no fish landed-yet.