Day: 26 June 2018

Day 6, 26th Jun 2018, Pos 36 – 23N, 149 – 25E Daily Run 145 nm. Weather, Breezy and Sunny.
Weather forecasting is proving to be impossible, Yesterdays predicted flat calms turned into decent winds on the port beam, and have stayed that way for the last 20 hours or so. I think we are under the influence of a high pressure system now, hence the stability, sunny skies, and quite calm sea. We have only been ambling along at 5 knots, but today that picked up to 6 and then the current appeared again at 3 knots giving us a healthy daily run of 145 nm On the good news front, the batteries coped easily running the auto helm through the night. I switched it to a less aggressive setting which might have helped a bit. I also made 20 litres of water yesterday while it was nice and calm, we currently make the water into 10 ltr Jugs and then decant them into the tank, that we we have better quality control, also I haven’t finished the plumbing yet to eliminate the jugs. On the bad news front, at some point in the night during Kathy’s watch the auto helm lost the plot and decided to take us in 360 deg circles, I power cycled it several times, as this sometimes helps, but that made no difference, then while I was pondering, it just started working again. Kathy was happy to assume we were all ok now, I’m wise enough to electronics to know that this a problem that will return soon enough. However I also know it’s most likely going to be due to a bad connection or a dry joint somewhere, something I can probably find and fix. The other bad news is that today when I tried to make more fresh water, the machine failed to produce any. Again, I know this machine inside out and I’m pretty sure this is down to an air lock or restriction in water flow somewhere, nothing too serious, but we don’t really need it as we carry plenty of water, I will get onto this job later.It was reluctant to start yesterday, but when I bypassed the raw water filter and turned the pressure bypass switch on, then reversed the process it was fine. We had a fantastic sunset, moonset and sunrise last night and this morning. The sea is lovely and clear here and yesterday I spotted a huge plume of water shoot out of the sea only 50-100 metres away from me, this was a classic disney style whale water spout, sadly I didn’t see the whale. I expect we will see them soon.
I sent emails to a few family and friends but got no reply over the last few days, this may be because I had the wrong address in the reply to field, could you please reply again using the myiridium.net email account I have.
The engine has been off now for the last two days, and with our average speed higher than I expected, I think our 6 week voyage may only end up lasting 5 weeks. We dread turning up in America and having to throw away food we didn’t get to eat, like some of the nicer cheeses, saying that, I’m off to try some Edam I got in the Philippines.
Paul Collister