Mea Culpa - after all!
Wednesday 7th December 2022 12o 55.8 N 56o 10.7 W Today's Blog by David (Time zone: UTC -3) Motoring report Sixteen days into what is becoming a slower passage than we would have liked, we blasted through the last couple of shower/squall-ettes last night only to find …… no wind at all. So “donk on” at midnight and …… so it has been all day. Chiz chiz. We are currently surrounded by four yachts within 10 miles – each of which I assume are all ARC boats - “Blue bay”, “Sunset 0”, “Funny Girl” and “Yuva”. (How did they choose those names?) It’s feeling rather crowded – frankly. Indeed, some larger yacht sailed up close up our chuff the other night – no AIS – and called on the VHF to ask “our “ intentions. He’s overtaking boat for heavens’ sake! Should never have been that close at night!! A glimmer of hope in the weather forecast suggests that we might be able to sail tomorrow – and in roughly the direction we want to go. Now that would be a great relief. (Indeed the omens currently suggest we might be sailing before midnight.) Now, if it happens, that could save us 150 litres of diesel and we would be able to carry straight on past Barbados!! Fingers crossed! Meanwhile, there doesn’t yet seem to be the customary excitement among the crew of an impending landfall. It seems that two weeks of intimate togetherness has exhausted all possible lines of small talk - today’s motoring has now induced a state of torpor among them, who are currently reduced to discussing the shape of individual clouds – at least each one is different! Fishing report We have taken the opportunity of motoring to trail a lure for most of the day (opportunity? … because if we do hook anything, we can stop the boat easily to land/boat it). We caught a lot of sargassum - no fish. Now that is probably because the fish are enjoying themselves. The water temperature, at 30.5oC, is higher than the air temperature (circa 27-28oC) and so no self-respecting fish would want to go somewhere that is colder than home – at least not without its salopettes J. Engineering report The relatively stable platform of a boat under engine in a flat sea has allowed us to catch up with a couple of Stuff-that’s-gone-wrong-and-needs-to-be-fixed. Terry and I spent a couple of hours trying to eliminate an annoying noise from the joint between the mast and the boom vang. It was keeping people awake apparently. (They should ust ask Jenna how she feels about the engine noise in her cabin – or the kango hammer above her head that is the starboard electric winch!!). Anyway, that’s seems to have been tolerably successful, if not permanent. We also needed to service the anchor windlass so that the anchor drops when asked – because we hope to be asking it to do so soon!! Idiot report A couple of days ago, in connection with our loss of connectivity, I protested that “…..I am not quite as inept as you now assume! “ Well, ……..it seems that - perhaps – after all- I am – in fact - that inept! No. really! To cut a long story short, I say that I can’t receive attachments etc. at sea. In fact, I choose not to , because data rates are circa US$20 per megabyte (i.e. $20,000 per gigabyte!). To maintain this happy position I need to tick all the right boxes when I log on – job done! On the day in question, it seems I ticked all the wrong boxes – as soon as I had sent the initial traffic, Windows decided to do a background update – if having not done so for 14 days or so – and quickly blew through my remaining ($190) credit! No warning email to Gavin until the following morning – well after my friendly yottie had contacted him to get me out of the hole that it now appears I made for myself! Mea Culpa You knew it didn’t you? You certainly wanted it to be so! Finally, the search for the Chocolate mouse goes on …………………………… |