Saturday 7 June 2014
JABA
Basil Panakis
Sat 7 Jun 2014 09:05
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36:11N 34:25W
This my position now, 8.05 UTC. We tend to go a lot to
the South but I have no choice.
I did not manage to get anything from Northwood in the
past two days. The last one was on Wed about the significant winds predicted for
Thursday. They hit us on Wednesday night and all day Thursday, around 28 kt,
after lunch it went up to 32kt, zero viz and rain. Didn't last long. I kept
enough Genoa to give some westing otherwise we were going south or even east of
south.
Jackie wants to know what I eat, well the staples are
rice, pasta and new potatoes (tins) and bread. The latter is German rye bread
that lasts for a long time, I have a packet and a half left. Various tins of
vegetables, say for example peas which I put a tin with the rice and I end up
with a green rice, as I use the juice the peas come in. I did some salads during
the calm days after Punta Delgada, lettuce, cue, toms, Kalamata olives, mussels,
anchovies, pepper, shredded red cabbage in jar (Polish), mixed pickles
(Turkish)...not necessarily all together. When one thing run out I replaced it
with another. The only thing left fresh are onions and white cabbage. There are
some oranges and 3 bananas left, purchased from Punta Delgada.
There are meat tins too as well as kippers, sardines,
mackerel, tuna etc.
There is maintenance to the boat like fixing for a
second time the wire terminal to the rudder stock ( anode wire). I replaced it
with a new terminal which I crimped as hard as I could. Cleaning the boat too,
tidying up etc. Despite the strong winds I still had my shave and wash. I use
baby wipes not soap and water. I go through quite a few packets.
The AIS alarm went just now Range 7.3 NM will pass to
the north of me. Their SOG is 19.4 kt. I like these fast ones they go off the
screen quickly so I can put the alarm back on. When this happens at one o'clock
in the morning and it happens to be a slow one I have to be up for the next four
hours. I cannot afford the go to bed without the alarm in case
another ship turns up.
One thing I do before I go to bed is turn on the
Nav lights, not because someone is going to see them but to avoid a bird strike.
Last time on the way back from the Azores I lost my VHF aerial and windex, I
thought it must have been the bad weather, but Bill said it was most likely a
bird strike. He had a strike on his rigging and apparently makes a hell of a
noise.
Are you getting the SPOTS now? May be Tony can
answer this if he gets these blogs.
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