Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Woke up for my 2-5 am shift with the news Steve had been attacked by a suicidal flying fish. We have developed a small diesel leak and Steve had opened their bedroom window to get some ventilation, during the night a flying fish went straight through the top window on to Steve.

After a later deck inspection Steve found another flying fish and a few squid equally eager to commit suicide.

Winds picked up and shifted in our favor during my morning watch and by the time I had woken up later in the morning, the Code Zero was out and we were making good progress.

As we’re making such good time we are leaving the Code Zero up over night.

No fish on our lines, but as we hauled the lines in after dinner something had taken a couple of serious chunks out of one of our fancy rubber fish lures.

They’re out there just need to hook them or leave the windows open and use Steve as bait.

For this passage, my first watch of the day starts at 5am ship time, the first hour of which is in the dark. I usually use this time to write my blog waiting for light. As we progress west this hour of darkness will lengthen to include my whole watch which I’m not looking forward to.

Anyway. At day break I made a final tally of marine life caught overnight: 5 and 2. That means 5 flying fish and 2 squid were found on the deck. That includes the flying fish that made it into my bunk. About the same time I put out our four trolling lines which were to prove as fruitless as the previous day.

Both John and I have been suffering from a case of the runs for the past week and yesterday I was feeling somewhat drained, in more ways than one. I decided to go for a morning rest but was overcome by the smell of diesel that had been building up in our cabin. I removed the bed covers and inspected the tank to find there had been a leak around the fill pipe. My guess is that filling from the cans had put in more fuel than a fast pump does and the subsequent sloshing around at sea had exposed a small leak. Further investigation revealed about a pint or two of fuel sloshing around under the tank and along the bilge. Thus began the effort to remove the fuel which was no easy thing. I’m glad I packed a packet of nappies/diapers for just such an occasion.

One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog is that I had examined the genset for the cause of the overheating. The impeller looked ok but there was a film of green scum in the water strainer so I’d cleaned that out. Back to day 3, to lower our fuel level a tiny bit I ran the genset for 2 hours. This enabled us to recharge the batteries as we’d not been regenerating in the light winds so far. It also showed that at least the genset could run for 2 hours without triggering the overheating condition. Not feeling too well initially followed by upside down work in the bilge and diesel fumes left me feeling badly off and spent most of the day just resting.

Initially, the winds were promising but they died off to around 5 knots for most of the day. Under the code zero we were making 3 knots in these conditions which was ok.

The only marine life seen throughout the day were a few birds, flying fish and a single somersaulting dolphin sighting early one. We had a few radio communications via net with a nearby group of boats.

In the evening the wind began to pick up. The true wind speed was approaching 10 knots and, as we were flying the code zero at 66 degrees, the apparent wind speed was in the early teens. I set a cautious limit of 16 knots apparent to fall off and bring down the code zero. Really a day 4 story, we were awoken by Helen during her midnight shift as the code zero had again shredded. From what Helen reported it looks like it was left up too long but I suspect a major contributing factor was a weakness from the previous repair. The damage this time was extensive so I doubt it is worth attempting another repair. More $$$$ as I really don’t want to be without a light air sail as our experience earlier in the day proved.

All in all, for me a pretty bad 24 hours. On the upside I did receive a reassuring email about my father which lifted all our spirits.

When I woke up this morning I was delighted to discover we had wind and we were sailing. It wasn’t coming from a perfect direction but at least we were heading west. I felt we were flying but in reality we were only going about 5 knots. Compared with our recent speed record, we were flying. As the day progressed the wind increase a little allowing us to occasionally hit 6 knots!
In general it was a lazy day. I’m reading ‘The Time Travelers Wife’ which is pretty engrossing. Its certainly passing the time away.
When I took over for my night shift the wind had picked up even more and was coming from the right direction. We were averaging over 6 knots, it was wonderful. Near the end of my shift I went downstairs to put a few things away in my cabin. Steve suddenly wakes up and shouts ‘There’s water on me’. When we switched on the light there was a wet fish on him. He’d opened the top hatch for some air and the flying fish must have got in from the deck. Of course the bed stank of fish so we had to change the sheets and Steve to shower. At least we caught one fish today.

Woke up this morning and the Galapagos Islands were out of sight. Winds still not great, but a little in our favor, but we brought out the Code Zero and made some way towards our target if not a bit too north for our liking. No fish… the fancy lures have now been fired and replaced with good old, tried and tested rubber squiddies and the evil tri-hooks, we’ll see what happens tomorrow with this setup.

I woke for my 5am shift to learn we had cleared the confused seas and winds to the south of Isabella and were now smoothly sailing albeit in light winds from the SSE. As the day progressed this presented us with a dilemma. We really wanted to make some miles south to reach the stronger and more easterly trades. To get south we had to keep our standard sails up which don’t have a great deal of power in the lighter winds. Later in the day I decided to try the Code Zero. Even though we point over 20 degrees less it does have a lot more sail area. The result was we ended up sailing due west. With the NW setting current (also preventing us making any distance south) we were making approx 6 knots in 10 knots of wind.

So the dilemma was do we press SW at around 4 knots reaching the trades sooner or W at 6.5 hoping for a change in wind which we reasonably could expect to happen at some time.

In the end, I figured both would make sense. Fly the Code Zero during the day to make up the miles in the light winds and fly the regular head sail at night for safety and making our way south. As luck would have it, the wind strengthened a little around dusk so when we switched sails we were able to sail SW at 6 knots. By 11pm, at the end of my last watch of the day, the winds had shifted to the SE suggesting we may be reaching the trades already.

So that’s the wind. The rest of the day. Dawn revealed 360 sea/ocean. Land was lost from sight. The wonderful picture of Isabella the previous dusk was now lost over the horizon and/or in the haze of distance. I set the four trolling lines as soon as I could but we were to have no luck. Around 9am we made contact with a Japanese sail boat, Yaima. All was well aboard.

Sea life was much less abundant. We saw the odd dolphin in the distance leaping out of the water, presumably chasing prey. One or two sea birds were seen including one which flew alongside the boat after dark. For a while it was entertaining trying to hold the laser pointer on it.

The night sky is truly awesome. The moon is new, there is no light pollution at all and the humidity is reasonably low. We therefore see the sky in all it’s glory. The milky way is no longer a smudge and is now a textured band across the sky.

The only other surprise for me happened during what is really day 3. During Helen’s shift I’d opened the hatch above our bed a crack to get some fresh air. I awoke to the sound of Helen in the cabin and something cold and wet on my leg. I asked Helen if she had put cold wet hands on my leg and she said no so I replied there must be a fish in the bed. She said I must have woken up in a dream so I rummaged through the sheet. At first I couldn’t find anything convincing Helen of her hypothesis. In the end I found a reasonably large flying fish nestled in the sheet, still a alive. Yuch. I threw it back out the hatch. I had to shower while Helen switched the sheets. Nasty surprise.

All the thrills of being out at sea are tempered by the news that my father has had to have a series of operations with worrying discoveries. I check for emails from family fairly frequently. When I see a new email header and have to wait the extra minute for the text of the email to arrive I await in in a combination of hope and dread wondering if the news will be encouraging or not. The separation caused by distance and isolation isn’t the best thing right now.

Love you Dad. Hope you get better soon.