Blog 17. At sea.
Alcedo
David Batten
Tue 28 May 2019 07:55
Skipper walking the deck as the sun goes down.
Last night we had to turn on the iron topsail and motor sail for most of the night. Happily, the wind came back just in time for the Skipper’s wife, nicely set up by Jane, who was “disgusted” with the wind on her watch. That is the wind which arrive just in time for Jane and Skipper to have the sails ready for the Skipper’s wife to take over.
All day, just enough wind to make reasonable progress and allow Bill set up his lines. And wow, a big strike with the rod screaming as the fish took off. Then it was Bill’s turn to be disgusted.
Bill with the remains of the lure after the fish got away. Another disgusted member of crew, while Jane and Skipper Wife are frankly relieved.
Now Sunday morning and we have been motoring for most of the night and there is no sign of the wind returning in the next 2 days. We are now 240nm from Mackay and 33nm from our waypoint off the Great Barrier. It was quite a busy night as we crossed the outer shipping lane with 5 ships coming sufficiently close for us to have to monitor them carefully.
As there have been few sunrises and sets recorded, herewith todays.
Sunrise taken on Jane’s watch.
Jane has decided that we need a master class for the instruments. They all require a slightly different adjustments to show a) what we actually want displayed and b) how much backlight each has so that those of us who are blinded by them at night can see. The auto helm also started doing its own thing, like switching itself off with a cryptic message about not getting enough data to be able to follow the track. The Skipper has managed to sort it by taking the route off the downstairs chart plotter, which had a slightly different route to the main Garmin because the two displays are not talking to each other. This was an unforeseen problem as they have not shown any signs of sharing data before, but the auto helm seemed to be taking information from both, leading to confusion and eventual refusal to follow either route.
It is a lovely morning with plenty of time to catch up with the blog as the boat is looking after herself at the moment.
Alcedo
Sent from my iPad
Sent from my iPad