Motoring along...

Tuesday 26th February

Today was quiet enough. After breakfast there was a 10.00 o'clock chat on the long range radio between yachts. This is not an ARC set up, but one arranged between ourselves.
Next I went up to the bow to check on the furling system which jammed last night. I found a pulley not right so I fitted a shackle in its place. This is just a guide for the furling line to go onto the drum correctly.

Then , at 12 o'clock, it was roll call time. As I was duty controller I had the pleasure of noting everyones position and the number of engines hours used. It turns out that one of the bigger yachts has had to turn back due to a leak around their keel.

Then we refuelled to the brim from our deck cans, 150 ltrs used at 1.4 ltrs/mile. After some calculations we slowed down a bit to conserve fuel. Hopefully we will still arrive in Puerto Ayora around 8 AM on friday. I may well have to raid the generator tank, there is about 70 ltrs in that.

After that there was lunch of course.

In the afternoon Val got out the new DVD player and we all managed to get it working, with the new Bose speakers connected. The light was just too bright to view the screen properly and so when a big pod of whales came into view, crossing our bows about 50 metres away. I had to stop the boat in case we ran into one of them. I estimate they were about 35 to 40 feet long, and Val thinks they were bottle nose whales. There must have been about 20+ of them, all swimming along lazily. A spectacular sight. As I write this, there are 6 swallow tail gannets escorting us along.

The night sky is quite amazing, there has to be millions of stars up there, all of them little pinpricks in the dark. Very few clouds around, no wind to speak of and a strong counter current of 2 1/2 knots. The engine is doing well and pushing us along at 5 knots speed over ground.

I have just been chatting to a couple of other ARC yachts on the long range radio. We were all discussing the local wild life and the lack of diesel on board. I think that most boats are worried about arriving at all with fuel for the engine. We shall see what happens.

I have to go back on deck now to look out and make sure nothing has arrived in the vicinity.