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Starblazer - Starblazer 7 December Halfway



John
Well sort of. We left Gran Canaria with 2750 miles to go to St Lucia, so
halfway is when we have 1375 left to get there. The fact that we have
sailed and motored for a lot more than the other 1375 and will travel more
than that to get to St Lucia is just quibbling! Tomorrow morning before
breakfast (Saturday 7th December) we will reach that well defined
non-existent spot. We’ll celebrate with Cava for breakfast and a steak in
the evening.

By this point on the crossing in 2009 we had 20 knot winds and huge swells
sweeping down from behind and lifting us up and down on a fairground ride as
well as rocking from side to side. At the moment we have 10 knot winds and
a very small swell that is barely visible. Last time turning round to go
the other way was a silly idea, this time it would be easy.

Joyce
Friday morning dawned bright and sunny, eventually. As we had decided to put
our clocks back one hour at 0900 UT, 0800 local time was beautiful and
breakfast was in warm sunshine, at 0800 UT/GMT the sun had not risen. We
change Ship’s Time so that breakfast and dinner are both in daylight.

The earth rotates 15 degrees in one hour (24x15= 360 degrees in one day) so
this is used to define time zones, generally. The starting point is the
Greenwich meridian, 0 degrees longitude, theoretically placed at the
midpoint of the zone; i.e. UT stretches 7 and a half degrees either side.
Mainland Spain is located within the band of GMT or Universal Time but, for
political and economic reasons, works on UT-1, the same as France and
Germany. The Canaries should be UT+1 but use UT. Then we come to
Starblazer, still working on UT up to 35 degrees west! Theoretically we
should be on UT+2, less than 200 miles from the next zone, but for comfort
and convenience we have changed to UT+1. I’m sorry if I’ve confused you;
think about us juggling two different times. UT/GMT for the radio nets, the
written ship’s log and the weather email, Ship’s Local Time for meals, it’s
like continuously changing summertime.

One of the highlights of the day is the SSB radio net at noon UT/GMT. We
are one of the net controllers and can still communicate with most of our
radio group, defined by length of boat not speed. Yesterday we gained a
controller from the next group ahead and 5 other boats because they could no
longer contact the majority of their group. We use the 4 MHz band which
has a range of roughly 400 miles and should include the majority of our
group. Remembering my Radio Amateurs Examination theory from 41 years ago,
the signals bounce off layers in the earth’s atmosphere to define range.
Yesterday we heard a boat nearly 1000 miles away, clearly enough to write
down their position! There must be some disturbance in the upper layers of
the earth’s atmosphere.

You may have gathered, not a lot is happening out here. The wind is almost
from the right direction, it is weak but the seas are calm so we are
achieving quite impressive boat speeds given the death of wind. It is a
slow ARC.

Dinner was lemon glazed mahi-mahi, caught last week and frozen, on a bed of
tomato, onion and pineapple salsa with boiled potatoes. Dreaming up meals
relieves the boredom! Roll on tonight’s halfway steak.

Joyce



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