Day 3, 9pm 03:00UTC
pos 04deg37S, 92deg22W
course: around 218deg
Completed 275 straight line miles since leaving Wreck Bay. Divided by 57hrs gives you an 4,8 knot average thusfar in the doldrums. Not sure if thats good/average/bad for this stage of this leg? Dunno what other yotties do to get through this area? Twiddle their thumbs?
Thanks for the weather report. We have had an uneventful day on shimmi. Calm seas. Gentle long period swell. Very light winds. Hot sun. Few small birds. Not a single ship. We had the spinnaker up last night, going slowly at 3-4knots in 4-6knots of northerly wind on our tail. But by 4am the wind was gone so we started the engine and we have been motorsailing most of the day. We have had all combinations of sails: spinnaker and jib, main and spinnaker, main and gennie. This afternoon there were a bunch of lovely rain squalls all around us with light south and south westerly head winds so I stowed the spinnaker. Kept the main up and centered but we have had the gennie furled and unfurled at least 10 times as the wind changes direction and strength every 10 minutes. We tried chasing down some of the squalls, but its amazing: when you need water then it wont rain! But we got a few drops here and there, the rain catcher works well as long as the winds are light. The water tank is still just on 3/4 so we are maintaining our supply. As far as diesel goes we now have around 100 fuel hours available. According to the sailmail grib files the first of the trades are at 8 deg due south of us. Thats about 240 miles which could take another 3 days at this slow pace... We are hanging to get down to the trade winds, i think we are doing the hard part now, slogging it out to get through the doldrums... According to my 'fuel plan' we have 2 more days (40hrs) of motoring 'available', hopefully we are in the trades by then! Cant wait for a steady 15 knots across the port beam, shimmi is going to fly!! We want to make up for this slog by clocking a few 200 mile days (i wish).
Andy made us a potent chicken curry with rice this evening, washed down by a glass of red. Superb. Chantal sheared me today, leaving a trail of dirty blond hair in our wake. Quite a few insects and small rodents had to find a new home. I thought of whipping my hair onto the shank of a hook to use as a lure, but it remained a thought. No fish would have gone near it anyway. Had 5 lines out the back today with a variety of lures but no fresh fish so far. Not counting the rotten kamikaze flying fish. Josh and Indie are doing great. Its amazing how all of us have adjusted to this long journey ... you accept your fate and thats that. Andy is doing waaaay better. He has a laugh like Amadeus in that movie. We are all doing plenty of reading. Dunno what we are going to do when we run out of books.
Anyway, lots and lots of love from space ship shimmi. Its no joke folks: we are in deep space. A wormhole has just opened up ahead of us. Or is it a worm's asshole? Hope not.
ciao
Gid
Just offcenter of nowhere
ps 10pm Nice rainsquall is finally unloading water on shimmi, apparent wind of 17 knots on the nose, the raincatcher is still there (i think), good to know that it can cope with force 3 - 4. Lets hope the squall lasts long enough to fill our tank!
