00.57S 90.55W
JENNY
Alan Franklin/ Lynne Gane
Thu 6 Mar 2008 22:34
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Hello everybody
We are now back on the trail again having left the
Galapagos this morning.Everybody enjoyed their time there it is truly a magical
place,I don't think there is any other place in the world where the animals roam
at will without any fear at all albeit the animals of any size apart from the
giant tortoise are aquatic.
Ellie and Alan both did a lot of scuba diving Alan
passed his Padi Open Water course with flying colours ( Ellie did hers in
Thailand ) apart from the normal array of Parrot ,Clown,Grouper etc they also
saw some Hammerhead ,Reef and Pacific Sharks some of them about 18/20 feet on
one occasion their dive group evacuated the water in a hurray as one big shark
started to circle them,probably looking for lunch,mind you Ellie would be okay
she wouldn't make a mouthful.
Alan now has a new hobby in his life with his love
of diving ,mind you it may loose some of its appeal in the cold waters of home
but we will see,there are always wrecks to dive but the animal life isn't so
colourful.
As I have said before sailing long distances is not
like driving a car many items of equipment go wrong in the hostile environment
of the sea so we are continually servicing and repairing items of equipment on
the boat because once you set out on a journey the distances that we do there is
very little help at hand and you must be able to rely on your equipment
and vessel.We have apart from our generator and gearbox been pretty much
okay and the only reason we have had trouble with that was due to the lack of a
seal on the hatch allowing salt water to swamp the generator when we took some
waves over the back of the boat.In the main so far the plan to do it with a new
boat has worked out quite well compared with the problems that other yachts have
had due in some part to the age of their yachts.
By the time we reach the Marquesas we will be 140
degrees West nearly half way round the world (180 degrees is half way for those
that don't want to work it out).I think the most amazing thing about this rally
is the determination courage and skill of the people taking part some of us have
sailed thousands of miles in all types of conditions but for others their first
ocean crossing was the leg across the Atlantic,and the worse part so far
was probably the trip through the Dutch Antilles ( big seas,strong winds
) we now have our longest ocean passage of the whole trip 23/28
days.The Marquises are 4000nm from any continent just let that sink in, not
4000nm from any land but the other land are also islands even so they are
pretty isolated.
Once there we are in the land of grass skirts and
coconut shells with many ritual dances after all up until 80 years ago
cannibalism was still practised in fact the ancient sacrificial sites are still
very much in evidence as are the pits they used to keep the victims to soften
the meat we think we are okay.
Part of there custom was that every third boy was
brought up as a girl so these men have the actions and dress of a girl but the
equipment of a man they are able to marry and father children just as any
other man.Its quite strange really.When we were there 2 years ago we were served
by a rather well built waitress all dressed
up and made up like a women( I thought she's a well built girl) until she spoke
with the voice of a man he was a strong looking lad so there were no
remarks from me.
Well that's all for now at the moment we have very
light winds so we are motor sailing,we will probably need to go 400nm south
before we pick up winds that we can sail with, the seasons are a bit out of
character this year plus we are a little early for the trades to establish to
push us across this vast ocean,we certainly cannot motor more than a third of
the way so when the wind stops so do we and boy is it hot 44 or so.
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