16/1/08  17:00

I should have added in the last entry that of the 24 hours we only sailed for a little over six.  Sleeping was impossible and we are very glad to have weathered this particular period.  The winds for the next few days should be light and while maybe not enough to sail at a reasonable speed, in a reasonable direction, should not be on the nose.  Our theoretical left turn sign is a little less than 300 miles SSW and from there on we should sail the last 300 miles properly.  Anything we pick in between will be a bonus.

The sou chef offered undercooked pizza for lunch.  Yum.

Steve thinks and I’m inclined to agree with him that the water is getting in through the lazarette hatch which has a very dubious seal.  When we were motoring into the sea there was a huge amount of water on deck and because of the design if the deck it can only go aft to clear.  We sometimes have a couple of inches of water whizzing around the aft deck.  Now that the wind has abated (WNW 8 knots) there is no water on deck and no bilge alarm. Because of the steering system and exhaust pipes etc etc it is not possible to seal off the lazarette from the rest of the boat. I hadn’t understood this at first and even had a separate bilge pump installed in the lazarette, but when the boat is leaping about there’s very little it can do to stop the seepage.

Anyway it’s become a lovely afternoon, not quite as many layers required in the cockpit as last night.  I have never warn socks on this boat but woolly one are definitely de rigour. Sorry for that bit of French but I’ve been re-reading Lawrence Durrell and you have to sprinkle your writing with as many bits sometimes whole paragraphs of other languages as possible even if it makes it incomprehensible to mere mortals. More on that another time.

The birds are amazing; we’ve tried to photograph them but not so far with any success.

18:00

The WNW wind increases a few knots and we are at last sailing again making over 7 knots on course.

17/1/08 Midnight

I wake with some difficulty after 2 ½ hours of unconsciousness.  There is a very bright half moon and the wind has gone SW and we are on course for Port Stanley, but it’s 244 miles to soon to be on that course so reluctantly out comes the iron mainsail again.  It’s quite chilly; in fact Steve had to pump up the dinghy this afternoon as with the drop in temperature it was so soft it wouldn’t sit in the davits properly.

Steve clears an airlock in the fridge pump (again) and retires.

We’re still pushing curent.

02:15

I get a new weather forecast and it looks like the reason we wanted to go South first has  now dissipated relative to our positiion. There’s not enough wind to sail but by setting a course for Port Stanley now we will save 70 miles and as it looks like we’ll be motoring a great deal of the way I decide to skip the next waypoint and head for Port Stanley.

10:30 AM

Still motoring.  Wind WSW less than 10 knots.  Cloudy and cool.  No sun. No sea.

One of our expensive LED Navigation lights has partially failed, only one small sector lights up.  These are supposed to be fit and forget with a life of many thousands of hours. Oh well.

13:00

Out comes the thermal underwear for sitting in the cockpit.  Our 24 hour run was 163 miles, around the average I use for estimating passage length.  Unfortunately 18 hours were under engine. We are somehow out of sync with the wind pattern, had we been able to stop in Mar del Plata for a week or so we could have had a really good sail to Port Stanley and burned a lot less diesel.

 480 miles to go.