18:13.33N 21:18.48W Are we nearly there yet?
Lady Corinne
iain and gaynor macalister
Wed 23 Dec 2009 09:58
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Wednesday 23rd December 2009
0535 hrs
Good Morning, I was just
sitting here in the cockpit thinking that I must have writers block but it may
be that absolutely nothing has happened in the last 24hrs. Well,
that's not strictly true but I'm thinking, not much of interest. We have
been making steady progress towards the Cabo Verde Islands and Dorothy (Perkins
engine) has been soldiering on for mile after mile after mile,through another of
those weather arenas that we seem to be so good at.
At midday we ran out of
diesel in the ships tank, big mistake and as usual down to me. I really can't
understand why people run out of fuel but I do it all the time out here. Not
having a fuel gauge is a contributing factor. I knew it must be
getting low as we record how much goes in and knowing that she uses about 3 -
3.5 ltrs per hour we keep a record in the log of hours
run.
The tank is a 100 ltr
flexible bag that is mounted in the aft section of the boat and due to it's
construction and the way it has to be mounted it means that you can't actually
use all 100 as some stays in the bottom. This is a good feature as it
means that if we were to get any water or dirt particles in the fuel it would
have a safe place to reside. The down side is that you never get to
use all the fuel you put in, which to a Scot makes no sense, and you can never
be too sure how much of what's left in there is able to be
extracted.
The procedure for getting the
engine started involves removing the paneling around the front of the engine,
which sticks out into the saloon, opening up two bleed valves and purging
the air that has got into the system via the empty tank,not a job you want to be
doing when there's a sea running. I'm getting quite good at it now and when it
was finished we took the opportunity of swinging the compass and adjusting the
heading on the autohelm so that it agrees to the other instruments.
To do this we have to turn the boat through a number of circles while the course
computer calibrates itself. You must turn at just the right speed or it
tells you off for going "Too Fast" and you have to start again.After about eight
360 degree turns it finally confirmed that it was happy and we were able to move
onto the next stage of the day. Cheese and onion toasties, they seem to
re-invent themselves at sea and are always devoured with Mucho
gusto.
The decision to visit the
Cape Verde Islands was taken safe in the knowledge that we had all the pilot
book pages that Max had emailed to me in Mogan just in case we went as I hadn't
brought any charts as we weren't expecting to go there. Well! when I
went to the pc this afternoon to browse the info I simply couldn't find it
anywhere, computers huh! so unreliable, always losing things. A number of
options were muted but all fell at the first hurdle as I have set this email
address up so it won't accept attached files. To approach a landfall without
an up to date large scale chart and all the pilotage notes would be
unprofessional in the first instance and possibly
suicidal.
Robin - Have I ever
told you how much I admire you? Suave,sophisticated,
debonair,charming,witty,intelligent,rakishly good
looking,talented,personable,salt of the earth,awfully decent chappie and just
the sort of person one can totally depend on to help you out in a
fix.
I'm hoping Robin will be able
to help and have emailed him to ask for a written appraisal of the info we need
to get into Boa Vista which is our first choice. We also realised today
that Christmas day is on Friday not Thursday, as Gaynor has been insisting, so
it is looking good for Christmas with a firm base under our feet. Probably
won't feel very firm to us as,after 12 days at sea, we will probably be a little
wobbly when we get there and even wobblier soon after that. We're hoping for a
bit of wind today, and there are early signs that we may get it, to enable us to
arrive probably Christmas day morning but this could change either
way.
The haze on the horizon
is lightening and there is a faint orange glow starting to herald the arrival of
a new day. It's been pretty sunny for the last few days and we're in board
shorts wishing we hadn't seen those sharks! We were looking everywhere for
a thermometer today scrolling through phone menus, watches etc. but we
drew a blank which is probably a good thing as if you are experiencing minus 7
degrees I don't suppose you really want us tormenting you with tales of days
spent in 30+. Looks like it's going to be a scorcher today though. As things are
pretty quiet while we're motorsailing and there is no need to tend sails or
adjust things we have gone to a 3 hour watch pattern. It seems to be working
well and means that once your watch is finished you have 6 hours off, which is a
good rest period. We all seem to be up together during most of the
day. My watch finishes at 0800 today so I will probably sleep for a
couple of hours then get up for the rest of the day. We are heading South
West and where I'm sitting in the cockpit I'm looking across a black sea,
which is covered in small ripples that are picking up the colours that are
starting to manifest themselves in the sky to the East, it's rolling gently
away from me with a long, slow,gently undulating swell. If I tip my head
backwards I can still see the vestiges of nighttime with a couple of stalwart
stars desperately clinging onto what's left of the night as if their very
survival depended on standing their ground against the inevitable advance of the
sun which will extinguish them for another day."The morning sun and all it's
glory greets the day with hope and comfort too" Croons Rocking Rodney in my
headphones as the horizon grows into a scarlet blaze of colour that matches
the light given off by our red port navigation light that's mounted on the same
side just forward of the mast. The scarlet is slowly turning to orange as the
blue of the sky diffuses it's intensity.A jet is passing, heading North, and
it's thin contrail is evaporating fairly quickly which is an indication
that the upper air is dry and settled, not really what we wanted, a bit of
a puff would be good. Now I can see the very edge of the sun just peeping
over the distant horizon. And so begins another day in Paradise, time to get
Gaynor up for her watch, It'll be a shame to leave this scene, perhaps I'll just
stay up. Must remember to fill the diesel tanks up once Gaynor has had a cup of
tea, she'll really like that. I can tell from the pained look she has whenever I
announce re-fueling time. The reason for this is the incident on the way down to
Mogan, still makes me chuckle when I think of it but she doesn't smell any more,
well not of diesel anyway!. If you haven't read it it's worth going back to the
blogs from our first trip. We were all treated to a nighttime dolphin show
around 2030 last night and they were with us for ages. As they move under
the water they stir up the phosphorescence and it's like an sub-aquatic light
show as they move around. I hadn't realised but the splashes that I have often
heard at night must have been dolphins I just didn't see them.
Earlier in the day we had a squadron? of squid swimming past us (Going in
the opposite direction I hasten to add, we're not that slow) What a
beautiful day it's going to be - We all hope it's good for you
too.
Hasta
Ahora
Lady C and
Crew
Tristan - how do I come to
have so much of your music on my Ipod? It always makes me smile when one of your
tracks comes on, I always think of you and wonder how you're getting on - that's
just before we all race to shake it on to another tune! We're way overdue
for an update please -
Lady C and crew all
wish you were here with us - Pedalpusher at 5am!
Thanks
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