Day 2: Sunday 3/17
Funny story I think: I take over watch from Les around 2:30ish – I had gotten up early as it was very hot down below and I did not sleep very well – and Les told me he had just seen a fishing buoy off starboard – he searched with the spot light for more but didn’t see anything……dodged a bullet there. So I go out on the Portuguese bridge and I’m mesmerized by the stars…..I can see the Southern Cross and Big/Little Dipper all in one sky….so south and north star…..I feel one with some of the ancient mariners…..I’m thinking Jack Aubrey in the O’Brien series…….I see several shooting stars…..I break out in song…..Amazing Grace…..now normally I belt this out as Kathy is asleep but I tone it down as Les and Rose are asleep in the forward stateroom and their hatch is open……now I really can’t sing……I’m sure I’m way off key but of course to my ears I sound like Bing Crosby……I mean only God can hear me and he’s the forgiving type….right?…..oh, I forgot his sense of humor…… I look down and I see a fishing buoy go by the starboard side 10’ from the boat……oh, crap…..I watch in slow motion as I think fouled prop/stabilizer…..I see a yellow pennant floating on the surface but …..good news….it looks like the fishing line goes straight down…..it’s not on the surface…..we might be ok…..and then it is behind us……no noise, engine revs sound the same…..I quickly check the gauges and all is well……so, I go back out and look up and say ok, I get it, no more singing…..sorry…..Rose gets up as she heard me going outside……we both stand watch and for the next 45 minutes we don’t see anymore……so, I changed songs…..I started singing White Christmas……I think he liked that one better :)))))))
As a footnote, around 5:00am I saw two lights off to starboard….one turned out to be a 50’ fishing vessel….we passed about a mile away after diverting 15 deg south; the other light I never saw what it was.
Today was a very good day….very calm and gentle seas….we did need to run the stabilizers as the swell was 3-5’ and caused a rolling motion….but when I got up for my watch the seas had calmed enough to turn them off!!
The challenge today was speed. Yesterday we did 150 nm or about 6.25 SOG. Today we hit an adverse current and ran 5.2- 6.2 SOG. I changed the course slightly north to gain about 0.5 kts of speed (away from current) but we drifted 10-12 nm north negating the speed gain…..arghhhhhh. Per the current map we should be in a 1-1.5 kt favorable current…..so where is it????? Mark is sending us an updated current map so we will get that email when we send this log and hopefully with new data we can find that favorable current and get back our speed.
Why am I so concerned…..well, it’s all about fuel on MM…..we planned conservatively for 6.0 kt speed but we really want 6.5 kts to be very, very, very comfortable we have enough!!!!!!
Today was really, really hot….. we are going west so the afternoon sun baked the pilot house…..and for most of the day we had winds E <6 kts……so no apparent wind and the whole boat is hot……the GE refer warmed up to 48-50 deg and the Frigo freezer is in the low 20’s……ugh!!!!!!
Safety: Some people have asked what safety gear we have onboard. A few days before we left our Safety officer, Kathy, called us all together for a day of safety review. We went over the safety rules on the boat……like no one is allowed on the bow at night, fire extinguishers, etc……MOB (Man Over Board) procedures…..we have a MOB flag pole, a Life Sling and a round floating buoy. We reviewed the Winslow liferaft procedures and watched a video. Finally we reviewed all the items in our ditch bag and other items we will hopefully take with us if we have to abandon ship. Whoa…..nothing like discussing 20 ways to die….ugh!!!!!
Generator: Some may be wondering why we were all so tired before we left. I explained some of the things that happened in yesterday’s log but one area that hurt us was the Generator. For about 5 days the Gen’s thru hull kept plugging. When this happens the Gen eventually shuts down on high temp. It takes ~30 min to get the hose free and unplug it and then another 30 min to clean up the ER mess made by the saltwater et al. All this work is in a 95 deg F, 85% humidity environment…..lovingly called the MM sauna. On the last event, Les had another brilliant idea……let’s use a fresh water hose (45 psi) and blow back into the thru hull hose and see if we can’t clean out it for good……we tried that and whatever was plugging blew out and we had excellent water flow. I think these incidents were caused by Puffer fish sticking their nose into the inlet and getting sucked in…..ugh!!!!! While I normally drink a lot of fresh water to help stay hydrated, one day I could not drink enough. I ended up drinking 8-10 glasses of water over a 3-4 hour period and finally started to discharge……oh what a relief!!!!!!
Monday 7:00 am MDT or 1300 UTC:
All is well. Conditions have been mild!!!
Position: 01 09 S 91 50 W
– We had a counter current almost all day, we would lose >0.5 kts speed on the waypoint course (260 deg M) so adjusted 10 deg north and current slowly drifted us north by about 12 miles so negated the speed gained….ugh!
Course: 255deg M HDG, 262deg M COG – you can see from this the push to the north from the current
Wind: for the most part E <6 kts but had a brief period of E 8-10 kts
Waves: mixed; 2-4′ SW swell; 14 sec period; very little wind chop, some from wind against current chop; and a 3-5′ NE swell long period
Speed: current speed is 5.7 SOG, has varied 5.2-6.3 SOG; avg 6.0 SOG today; 6.07 SOG total for passage (we planned for 6.0 but hope/want 6.5).
Weather: no rain but see a squall 4 miles ahead to the west, mostly sunny and hot; sea temp 82.5° F
Boat sightings: 2 since we left; today a fishing vessel; several long lines out!
Fishing: We made it to the Galapagos boundary about 4:00 pm……so, could have fished for a few hours…..but I was too tired to get it all together…..that’s a first for me….ugh. But, we will be fishing first thing in the morning!!!!!
Fuel Burn: After 24 hours we were burning 2.7 nmpg….excellent…..but when I take the 48 hour fuel rate later today I’m sure it will be down due to the adverse current……ugh!!!!
