Somewhere in the Atlantic - have not finished my Sun sights yet!
Mustique
Fin McGurran
Sat 10 Nov 2007 11:53
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We are now motoring towards Madeira and the grand
old speed of 6.7 knots. Not ideal, but there is not a whole lot I can do
without wind. Decided to head towards Madeira just in case the wind does
not fill in and I need to pick up some more fuel. Filled 7 gerry cans
yesterday - so am carrying about 360 litres of diesel and trying to motor
conservatively. Had a little wind last night and managed to switch he
engine off for about 3 hours - which was nice, but it died around
midnight.
I haven't had any sleep yet - been a little busy -
did I tell you that we have more engine problems before leaving gib
yesterday? Well we did, and I could find no bastard to come and sort it
out - so, into the engine bay I went with my tool kit at the ready and a mobile
phone in hand, back to my engineer in the UK. (I was not going let Gib
keep me there for one more minute!) Anyway, what a star that guy is -
between us, I have the gear control cable off the gear box and found that it was
sticking on the lever! Problem found - but then needed to solve it - a
couple of hours later (and a very hot and sweaty me), I started the engine again
- and Wayhay... I could get it into gear. No more time wasted waiting for
anything else to go wrong - so threw off the lines with a very loud
Whoooppppeeeeee, I outta here! and we were off.
The shipping traffic around the straits is
horrendous. Had about 50 ships all around me all night, so we only
could afford to send one person below for an hour at a time - and then we
developed steering problems!!!! Great - but at least I knew what that was
and fixed it this morning at first light. Then, I had to take my first sun
sight (for my astro stuff) and spend the rest of the morning working out the
maths on that. Just prepared lunch and will wait till around 3pm to do my
second sight and then - if there are no more problems - try to get some
sleep!
I am so glad to be out of gib, but it looks like I
have 290miles to motor to Madeira and then another 340 miles on towards Las
Palmas.
Oh well, the Volvo lullaby sings again
Fin |