" A LADY TRIP "Sailing around the world. ( presently leaving the Galapagos)
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 8 Mar 2010 15:31
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SUNDAY 7th March
2010. Start day
07.00hrs Cloudy morning, but we are leaving today
and there is still things to do.
The Skipper opened up the primary water
filters, There are two of these, one for the engine and generator and the other
for the water maker and refridgeration system, the latter getting most use as
the refridgeration runs 24,/7
These have to be cleaned every month,as things tend
to grow in them and they also collect rubbish being sucked in by the cooling
systems,
We use concentrated vinigar to kill anything living
in them, this time when the viniger was added to one of the filters, guess what
! out jumped 2 crabs
and shot into the bilge at 100miles an hour, the
blighters are still roaming around the bottom of the boat, smelling a bit
vinigery.
Graham and John came on board again and lent us a
laptop with all the maps and gps needed for the trip.We definatly wont get lost
with
all the maps and associated bits now on board.
Thats one of the big advantages of sailing in a group,
No matter what goes wrong, there is always someone
that will know how to fix the problem.
10.30hrs Skipper and Fats started the process of
retriving the bow and stern anchors, this took about 1 hour and was easier than
expected.
11.45hrs, Fifteen minutes to the start of the next
leg, so we motored quickley to the starting line and stored the " fortress"
anchor on route.
12.00hrs Bang , and off we went heading WSW
in a nice 19knot breeze, towards " Hiva Ora" in the Marquesses Islands ( 3000
miles)
As we were close on the wind , the boat was doing
8knots over the ground, and we were happy out untill we tried to send and
recieve mail
The computer was down, Bloody panic , We now have a
very poor radio system with a 3 mile range at best , no computer for weather
updates
and contact with the rest of the world, and shortly
no mobile coverage as we will be out of range. JUST ! feckin
terrible.
However our N.B.F.'s ( remember that from
previous blogs) ..... ( New Best Friends) John and Graham, with the help
of Jan, Mike, and Charles,
from different boats eventually got us up and
running again, all being done by Radio relay.
Well done guys, all this took hours of real
patience .
20.00hrs Aileen cooked a pork chop dinner, it is
great to eat in the best restaurant we know again.
The watches for the night, :-
11.00hrs to 02.00hrs.............Fats
02.00hrs to 05.00hrs.............Stephen
05.00hrs to 08.00hrs..............Aileen
The sea was alive with phospherous once it got
dark, and it seemed to come alive with fish glowing in the sea , just below the
surface.
An amazing experience not witnessed by any of us
before.
The Skippers shoulder is still in trouble, could be
from working on the computer at funny angles.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde, ( Skipper
)
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