Perhaps if I was a journalist I would call this instalment 'drama at sea'.  In fact the day before yesterday produced two dramas, if that is the right word.  Firstly about mid afternoon we found a huge masked booby bird sitting on our cockpit awning.  We, all three of us had been sitting under said cover having tea and the noise of his arrival had been masked by the sound of Nordlys cruising through the waves at some 7 plus knots.  Now there are several facts about the booby that should be noted.  Firstly, it is large, nearly a meter from tail to beak.  Secondly its beak is four inches of deadly weapon.  Thirdly they are hugely efficient guano producing machines.  They do this in an almost constant stream.  The stuff was all over our awning.  Booby was persuaded to fly off, and subsequently landed back onto the side deck.  Annette and Chris set about cleaning the mess off the awning with gay abandon.  Buckets of water were flying.  However the resulting slurry found its way directly in through the open window above Annette's bunk.  This resulted in a ' lot of thinking about life' by the mate and a few Danish swear words that I seldom hear.

When all this had be sorted out and with drink in hand  we were watching the usual spectacular tropical sunset the VHF radio crackled into life.  The next little bit of entertainment was about to unfold.

An Israeli boat called Karni that we had first seen in Colon had a problem.  Her propeller shaft had parted from the engine and slid back, not out of the boat but up against the rudder.  The propeller was still going round due to the forward motion of the boat under sail.  A Swiss boat was standing by Karni.  The next two hours were spent with the Swiss guy and myself giving advice on sorting the problem.  The Swiss man was an engineer and had lots of spares on board. He tackled that side of things and I managed to come up with a way of getting the shaft back up towards the engine and more importantly off the rudder.  Judging by his accent the Swiss skipper may have been English but although the Israeli spoke English well it was his second language and lots of the conversation was technical.  Combine this with darkness and about twenty knots of wind and a lumpy sea and one realises that the Israeli was very resourceful.  We eventually left them as everything was under control and there was little more we could do.

In the morning on the SSB 'village' chat Karni reported all back together and working.  A situation that could have become very nasty was happily resolved.  Judging by the Israeli's wife's conversation with another female friend there was quite a bit of mental damage to be put right.  Also at the same time an American called Russ on a boat called Hyggelig asked for us.  He is a good friend of Roy and Tee Jennings  circumnavigators who live north of San Francisco and who are very good friends of ours.  He had heard by the HAM radio from them that we were in the area.  We are not HAM radio people.  He also talks to Peter Price, ex secretary of the RCC and friend of ours, on the radio. Small world.  Russ is on his own and a couple of days out of the Galapagos his mast had suffered a partial collapse.  He did a great job of repairs and is now sailing/motoring slowly with very reduced canvas towards the Marquesas.  He sounds remarkably calm and confident under the circumstances. We will rendez -vous and give him diesel if necessary.  Incidentally Hyggelig is the Danish for cosy so there is a topic for conversation when we all meet up.

There is a school of thought that looks down on all this radio chat and thinks that one should go to sea to be independent.  A school of thought that I understand but do not subscribe to.  No one was pushing the panic button and asking help from the authorities.  We were all just helping each other as hopefully one would do in normal village life.

Finally a third very minor drama.  Last night  we were  sitting in the cockpit, drinks in hand, watching a setting sun, again!  There was a mighty flapping, cries of 'I say',' what ho', or something similar, and a flying fish made it via the cockpit table and down the companion way to flap its scales all over the stern cabin.  I would like to say it went via a drink but that would be poetic licence!  Life is never dull at sea.

Best wishes as ever,

David, Annette and Christabel. 

PS as I finish this we are surging along with full sail before twenty knots of wind in brilliant sunshine averaging eight knots.  Annette is making bread, Chris is catching up on sleep and we are VERY tentatively hoping for an arrival next Tuesday.