I start my first watch at midnight. At 1.30 am Mike comes up to see what is going on as he can’t sleep – the boat is so noisy as it crashes around in the sea. When he goes back to bed I decide to give him time to sleep properly and just leave him to wake naturally as he has done so often for me. It means that in the end I do a 5-hour watch. During that time, Samantha drives me mad. About every 5 minutes she starts bleeping to inform me of a change in the wind and I have to get up and press her button to shut her up. She’s like an irritating child whining for attention.
Going back to bed at 5 am, I sleep until 8.30 am, then just lie there listening to the racket which is still going on all around the boat. When I get up, Mike goes to look at the generator, disappearing into the black hole that is the port engine compartment.
Photo: Into the black hole
He calls to me to turn the generator on then quickly to switch it off as the noise starts immediately. He had hoped that one of the cover panels had fallen off which might account for the noise but no such luck. He can see that the oil is being pumped in and cooling water is pumping out but can’t really do anything else until we are in port again. Talk about frustrating, and infuriating having spent all that money on it – again – in Fiji less that a week ago.
The two of us drip feed a certain level of despondency to the other over the generator. Well, it’s not really just the generator, it’s the fact that this is the latest thing in a long list of things that have been going wrong with the boat. If it was just our boat, it would be even worse, but nearly every boat in the fleet has had problems. I understand that boats are subject to huge forces when they sail, but aren’t their parts supposed to be designed to withstand these pressures and work, to a certain point anyway, regardless ie to be fit for purpose?
We pass the day taking it in turns to sleep, as neither of us are doing this properly at the moment and we have to snatch the odd hour here and there. The sea continues to be uncomfortable and lumpy with a big swell, although the wind is almost non-existent. In the late afternoon we take the main sail down and just sail with the genoa out. Eventually, to time our arrival into the island of Tanna during daylight, we take the genoa in as well, and motor at a painfully slow 3.5 knots an hour. We will probably only be able to stay a couple of days in the Vanuatu group now instead of a week. With Johanne and Steve coming out in a couple of weeks we need to get the generator sorted out as soon as possible and therefore need to head out to Mackay, Australia as soon as we can.
We decide to continue with the three-hour watches instead of the four-hour ones, and I take the first one. When I wake Mike at 11.30 pm, he remarks that I am far too lively to fall asleep quickly, which unfortunately turns out to be true.
Our position is: 19 deg 26 min S, 169 deg 55 min E
Distance so far: 9157 nautical miles
No comments:
Post a Comment