Wind at last
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Thu 28 Oct 2010 15:40
|
35:43.15N
013:42.98W
The wind has at last got up and we've been able to
turn off the donk. It's been another warm day, but rather than the feeble
following winds of the last few days, the breeze has swung round to the south
and southwest, which means that we're close hauled and butting into a small sea.
It's a funny motion after days of wallowing.
Not much of interest to report. We've seen just one
ship during the day. The whales have sensibly been keeping their heads down
after what looked like a whaling ship passed close by our starboard side in the
twilight yesterday. Apparently Madeira and the Azores were famous whaling posts
until they were persuaded to change their ways by the EU and its stacks of
euros.
We tried the watermaker today, but there seems to
be some sort of electrical problem with it and it keeps burning its way through
fuses. I've contacted the manufacturers and am hoping their rep in Las Palmas
will be able to fix it.
We also tried our £2 solar shower today. It's a
black plastic bag you fill with water and leave in the sun to heat, then hoist
above your head to 'shower in luxury'. Inverted commas don't communicate the
full sense of irony in that description, but suffice to say the only way we
could get the lukewarm water to emerge from the shower head was by hunkering
down on the floor of the cockpit while the other one held the bag aloft. The
warnings of water 'hotter than 45 degrees' rang hollowly.
We've got around 200 miles to go, which means we
should sight land the day after tomorrow. Hopefully the wind will back again so
that we can resume our course towards, rather than comfortably past the
islands...
|