Fw: Day 6
Zahara: The story so far......
Ron Dunn
Sat 28 Nov 2009 11:58
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Hi all, Larry here .....
We are still progressing well, but the wind dropped
slightly last night, so instead of making about 22NM each four hour watch, we
are now down to about 19. However, most of you know better than us where we are
in the fleet, as we cannot afford to download the web site - we'll plod on in
our usual state of blissful ignorance.
I have a confession to make. I pictured myself at
the end of this trip climbing off the boat being slim and sylphlike (well,
comparatively) due to the strict diet I was sure I'd be under during the
crossing. I have to report that Ron has ruined that totally. He keeps producing
great food in large quantities (despite how much he throws on the floor in the
cooking process!)
Take tonight- we'll be having Moroccan stew with
Chorizo and Couscous - delicious! Still, at least
the wardrobe(!) I have with me will continue to fit me and I won't need to buy
new in St Lucia.
The latest crisis has been caused by our strict
energy management policy. As we do not carry much fuel, we have to save it in
case we need it ( as in being becalmed). However, we really need to charge the
batteries with engine running for about one hour per day. If we did that though,
we would use nearly 1/3 of our fuel, leaving us short if
becalmed/dismasted/whatever. Now, as we have to spend ages each day running the
chart plotter, typing up blogs, sending position reports and downloading weather
info etc, it means we have little capacity for the really important things like
reachargeing my I-Pod. I just hope you all realise the sacrifices we have to
make.
Whilst we were going really well yesterday, Ron
lent over my shoulder at the chart table and said that he really wanted to be
able to record how far we had covered total in the day (sea miles and current)
as he wanted to achieve 150NM. He therefore asked me to measure between fixes
drawn on the chart 24 hrs apart. If you can imagine that the chart we are
using goes from Africa to Mexico and fits on our
small 2ft (60cm) chart table and that the plotting pencil is approximately
the same thickness as a Mars Bar, you might surmise that any such measurement
might lack a certain accuracy. Undettered, I plied my trade with the dividers,
and came up with an answer that could be anywhere between 132nm and 174nm. I
know where my best interests lie, so I confidently passed him a distance of
151nm. He's happy, I'm happy- what more can we ask?
Ron and Larry
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