Although there is the threat of squalls in the night, they come to nothing. It’s still quite dark at 6 am so I figure we must be coming to a time line soon and will need to put the clocks back again. During the night I am able to see lights from four other WARC yachts (Eowyn, Liza, Noeluna and Ronja) but by the end of my watch, only one yacht, Ronja, is still visible.
It’s nearly 8 am before Mike wakes up which is good as it means he has a good sleep for once. It’s a grey start to the day, not like the beautiful morning we had yesterday. We have tea and breakfast then I go back to bed around 9 am to have a couple of hours sleep but don’t wake up until well past the midday positioning broadcast. (This is where one volunteer WARC crew member calls all the other boats in the fleet and finds out their exact position and weather conditions at that position.)
Frustratingly, the satellite phone, which Mike topped up with additional minutes before leaving the Galapagos, is not working and has failed to send in our position to the WCC website, our e-mails and my blog. Jan, from the Norwegian yacht Ronja, offers us his spare SIM card but this would mean coming alongside his boat and somehow throwing it over, a delicate operation at the best of times, and one which Mike is loath to do as a first resort. Graham from Eowyn sends an e-mail from his boat to our service provider and the reply comes back to him saying the payment was rejected by our bank (they thought it was a fraudulent activity) and that they had e-mailed Mike telling him of this fact. Catch 22 then mates. We couldn’t get the e-mail as we had no internet minutes left to make a data call. How frustrating. In the end the payment appears to get sorted out with countless e-mails going back and forth between Graham and the provider and lots of conversations on the VHF, and we now have to wait for the phone to be unblocked. It’s at times like this that you appreciate the security and support that having other boats around you can offer, even if they are only visible on the horizon from time to time.
The day brightens up after lunch and we fly along at an average of 8.5 knots. The sea conditions are not as good though, and I am advised not to do the death watch walk (chucking the dead marine life overboard) as the sea is too rough. Double the baked bodies tomorrow then. I’ll look forward to that.
Mike tells me that tomorrow we will be putting the clocks back – so I was right about that. We will then be 7 hours behind UK time. Taking the fishing line in he discovers that some bloody fish has again bitten through the line and taken his favourite lure – and we didn’t even feel or hear a fish on the line at all. Bastard!
We put a reef in the main sail before it gets dark and still manage to get nearly 8 knots. I go to bed while Mike takes the first watch but it takes me ages to get to sleep because of the horrendous noise the waves are making underneath my bed. Sometimes it sounds like the boat is breaking in two as the force reverberates through the hulls, making the boat shudder. It is something I don’t think I will ever get used to.
Our position is: 04 deg 51 min S, 105 deg 01 min W
Distance so far: 3540 nautical miles
No comments:
Post a Comment