Archive for March, 2017

Day 30 -  The lull The day started with a gentle north east wind. In order to keep pushing forward we needed to do a series of tacks but it was slow going and we could not afford to use the last of our diesel for motoring, estimating that we only had about 15l left which we needed to conserve for our arrival in Cape Town. An error had been made in deciding not to replenish our diesel reserve in Tristan. We used ... Read more

Day 29 - Sighting Bolero The night sky was clear again and those interested have spent quite a bit of time getting to know the names of the stars and the constellations above, and a fair amount of competition arises in naming them accurately. At 0500 Bolero called us up on the VHF but, despite receiving their transmission clearly, we were , for some reason, unable to send. At 0900 we sighted Bolero on our port side, but repeated attempts to contact them ... Read more

Day 28 - Ships in the night During the night we were passed by two large bulk carriers. The AIS smartplotter is proving very useful in early alert and identification of vessels. It is quite surreal to see a ship pass by silently in the dark. There is an inner desire to make contact with the crew, to reach out and touch the rest of the world. Another phenomenon that intrigues Jane is the phosphorescence that jumps and sparkles in the heads when ... Read more