24/2/08 21:00

Late this afternoon, Nik and I went on a dinghy exploration for an hour or so in the icy rain, with cameras.  For some reason no one else wanted to come.  When you approach the glaciers up close you realize just how enormous and beautiful they are.  This would be a phenomenal place to visit in half decent weather, which is not alas in our cards.

We have repacked the spare dinghy which was living on the foredeck and is now back in my cabin. Before we go we will remove the long line reels from the foredeck; a big wave in The Drake would simply rip them off. We will also stow the tandem fisherman’s anchor in the lazarette. Steve had to change a generator alternator fan belt. The rudder stock seal is letting in a bit of water again but nothing the bilge pump can’t handle.

Alarms are set for 4AM tomorrow morning.

25/2/08 12:00 Noon

We got up more or less at 4AM and by the time we’d stowed everything and motored through the rocks for the last time in was 5:30.  By 6 we were clear and sailing.  We were hurtled out of the Melchoir Islands in a SW Force 6 on a beam reach at 9-10 knots.  Then Gods are mocking us because as dawn broke there was hardly a cloud in the sky.  When I went back on watch at 9:30AM I had to wear my sunglasses for the second time since coming down here. As the morning wore on the wind eased and by 11:30 we were motor sailing.  We need to maintain a minimum of six knots and when the sailing speed drops below that we add the engine to the mix. 

Although clouds have appeared the sun is still actually shining.  I’m afraid there hasn’t been time to prepare any pictures today.   I will see what I can do later.

25/2/08 18:00

When I came on watch this afternoon at 3:00 pm there was a completely clear sky.We had great views of Smith Island well over 20 miles away.  The wind has turned North (on the nose natch) but is mostly 10 knots or less, so we keep on motoring.   One minute there was a low grey band on the horizon and two minutes later all the blue vanished, the viz dropped to 200 meters or less and surprise surprise we are back in the grey soup again. 

21:00

Still motoring. Still foggy. Wind is beginning to veer WNW, which is hopeful.

26/2/08  09:00

The wind veered West and by 21:30 we were sailing again, going back to engine between 12:40 and 4:30. 

At 5:45 as I was starting to climb into many layers to go on watch, the steering failed. Within seconds everyone was on deck. There was no panic, everyone  quietly pitched in to find and sort the problem We emptied the lazarette and found the linkage between a universal joint and the rudder stock was the problem.  This is located in a very difficult area to get at and it looked like it would be necessary to pull out all the  batteries etc under my bunk to get access, taking at least two hours out and two hours in.  So we decided to rig the emergency tiller which turned out to be  little short of hopeless.  It is made of mild steel and the square socket end rounded its corners immediately.   You  have to connect its short arms to two winches to operate it.  The slightest movement has a huge effect and there is so much slop in the system it is nearly impossible to steer.

In the end Steve enlarged the hole from behind in the lazarette bulkhead through which the universal joint rod was connected and was able to get a spanner on the joint and remake it. We don’t know how much if any damage there is to the splines which give the connection its grip. By 7:30 we were off again, in our grey mush, the fog having been replaced with light rain.  We were fortunate that this happened in a NNW Force 5 and not in something stronger or in the huge seas The Drake is famous for generating, or even near the rocks on a lee shore.

 A couple of hours later we started getting “Pilot Off Course” alarm messages and indeed they appeared to be true.  I resorted to the old expedient of switching the power to the pilot and the instruments off and on. We restarted the track, the pilot wandered around for a while and then seemed to find its place and we now have zero cross track error.  Which is good.

12:00 Noon

All systems still okay.  We are making slow progress to the NW against 25/30 knots from the North. This wind should veer NW and allow us to scoot up to the NE and make back the Westing quite quickly.

Our 24 Hour noon to noon run was reduced to 167 miles by this morning’s incident. 385 miles to Puerto Williams but we’ll be in the Beagle channel in about 340.  Today’s pictures are the lat taken in Antarctica.  The Melchoir Anchorage looks pretty dark which it certainly was.  The final two are of Smith Island during the brief taste on sunshine on the way out.