Day 3 began as I finished off sending my last blog. I was startled to hear something crash to the deck outside. Fearing some issue to resolve I quickly looked around to see what the cause/results could be. I found our large seabird friend, the one that had settled down on the spreader, slumped on the transom struggling to move. It managed to fall off the transom down the steps and from the bottom step it flapped into the water where it swirled around for a bit in the stern wash. I noticed that the wind gen was not spinning despite our 8 knots apparent wind. As the bird drifted off out of sight and the wind gen picked up speed the inescapable conclusion arose that the two had met severely injuring the bird but fortunately leaving the wind gen intact. In the morning I discovered that the big bird had pooped on the deck and our sail cover. Retribution perhaps required but death by wind gen was somewhat disproportionate.
The other sadness came in the morning when Helen discovered our other new friend, the little bird that had arrived exhausted, had dropped dead in the night. We had suspected this could be the outcome but it was sad to see it occur. Of course, the could have been two different but identical birds but both had been our companions for the previous day and neither returned so chances were they were no strangers.
Overnight we continued with little to no wind. At 8am I wanted to listen in to the morning net so we stopped all engines and instruments to minimize any noise and left Helen trying to handle the boat in 2 knots of wind. We again heard Jackster who had made good progress, presumably in the near constant 20 knot wind that blows out of the gulf of Panama. They also relayed Bristol Rose’s position but we only heard the latitude which was similar to Jackster’s. Chances are their longitude was similar too.
Once the net was over I fired up the genset and Helen put the boat back into motion. We soon had a yelling match because Helen hadn’t checked the fishing lines and I (as captain – admiral position having been resigned) had neglected to enforce a check. The cause was the fact that two of the lines were disappearing under the sterns and the remaining two tangled up with one of the lines under the stern. Now I know the worst that can happen hear. The line gets tangled round the prop causing a whole heap of line to collect up and get stuck. The friction then melts the line creating a lump which can get stuck into difficult places. Fearing the worst we stopped engines and cut all power to the props. We dropped sails to remove any motion and I jumped in to take a look. With relief I discover the lines were only wrapped around the rudders which was soon remedied. Being in a mile deep of crystal clear water was quite interesting. There was no marine life that I could see. I head heard that it’s advisable to stay in the deep sea water for only 5 minutes lest one attracts cruising sharks so I didn’t linger too long.
We brought all the tangled lines onto one reel and again set off. With the wind under 2 knots (which means no wind at all) we didn’t bother to raise the sails and just motored. John and I then spent the next 30 mins untangling the three lines before putting them (and the untangled 4th line) back off the stern.
We continued motoring most of the day. At times we’d see 4-5 knots and when this was not on our nose we’d raise the sails to gain speed. At one time the wind was up to about 6-7 knots so we gave the engines a rest and trundled along at around 3-4 knots with a favourable current.
Not wanting to over cook the batteries we’ve decided on a compromise where we still motor on batteries at 4 knots for a couple of hours. When we turn on the genset we throttle up leaving only 40 amps to charge the batteries. This pushes us along at just above 6 knots taking sevaral hours to charge. It’s not as efficient but our speed is better and we give the chargers and genset a rest every now and then. We can also send and receive email while running on the batteries which we struggle to when the genset is running.
That was about all the excitement for day 3. We saw a few more flying fish but the turtles were hiding. Sunset was not as glorious as day 2 (not sure I mentioned the fish or the sunset in my day 2 blog). In the afternoon a boat crossed our path, possibly heading for Isla del Cocos. We tried contacting them on the VHF but had no luck.
Today we should reach our waypoint at 3N 85.5W after which we’ll allow ourselves to head a little more west. The rationale being that it’s easier to motor sail south when there are no southerlies than further south when we expect them. Our route will hopefully allow us to sail the last 2-3 days in the south westerlies that should materialize once we’re through the doldrums. Day 3 morning forecast had the ITCZ between 3.5N and 5.5N around our longitude – a big move south from the previous day. I’m hoping today it’ll jump back north and we can stop this motoring.
Everyone seems fine, relaxed and enjoying the passage. Hitting the waypoint today and slightly prior to that our half way point will add some ‘excitement’. Yesterday we avidly watched the chartplotter as we went from the 5s into the 4s – lattitudes that is. That’s entertainment on a boat in the middle of nowhere.
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At 3/29/2010 06:38 (utc) our position was 04°28.43’N 085°26.10’W
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