Position Update N28:13.471 W55:07.44
PASSEPARTOUT
Christopher & Nirit Slaney
Mon 30 Apr 2012 21:31
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Horse latitudes.
The wind died completely two hours after sunup and we
have been burning diesel ever since. The barometer is high - 1026 mb - and
clouds cover the sky completely as we motor along at a little over five knots
anxious to conserve as much fuel as possible for what might be a long calm
stretch.
The dead calm has a couple of advantages; we ate lunch
seated at the table for the first time since leaving St Maarten and gave the
cockpit a thorough cleaning with sea water. This morning's rigging check found a
block with signs of disintegrating bearings. It formed part of the sheet to the
self-tacking jib which needed repair on Saturday. The block has been replaced
with a spare, not quite identical in terms of bearing load but hopefully up to
the job. Now that the boat is no longer heeling we managed to get the
desalination unit to behave properly and made around 160 liters of fresh
water this morning. Boiled nicely by the engine's heat exchanger this
produced some very welcome hot showers.
We tried to catch a weather forecast on the SSB but no
luck, either range or poor propagation make it impossible. The weather maps
downloaded via satellite show winds from the wrong direction to the north of our
present position, so we have set course 078 for Horta and hope to find some
favorable breeze along the way.
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