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Selene - A game of two halves



Trans-Atlantic sailing like football it seems is a game of two halves.

Following our rather nasty squall last night the remainder of the night was relatively uneventful and we had a pleasant night sail in fairly clear conditions, albeit with the occasional gentle rain cracking along at 7-9 kts under half the genoa and 2 slabs in the main and winds between 20-30kts from just aft of the beam.

This morning dawned clear and bright and the sun shines down on us from a clear blue sky. The wind has dropped to a comfortable 15Kts TWA about 135 so we shall be hoisting the asymmetric shortly. Lets hope this is the beginning of the second half and more of this to come. Our latest grib shows a couple of wind holes, but we should be south of the first, but no way to avoid the second unless the situation changes.

Rather more disappointing is the news that when we tried to start the engine to see whether drying out the control panel and WD40 in the ignition switch may have saved the day, she would not start. It seems there is insufficient power in the engine battery to crank us. The ignition switch may be where the problem lies in the first place since yesterday morning when we initially tried to start the engine nothing happened. After switching off then on again we did start the engine and there was charge initially, but it failed soon after starting the water maker. Anyway after removing the panel, chasing down and checking all the connections and liberally spraying WD40 all around we have a dead engine. Bugger!

So the situation now is that we are doing a water audit. Thanks to careful husbandry and rigoroussly maintaining the water tank as close to full as possible, the starborad tank is full and the port tank is half full. We have about another 96L in 0.5L bottles and 4 x 8L water in larger containers for emergencies. We shall be using sea water for washing up and will be drinking the bottled water rationed at 1.5L per day per person. In addition we can use the tanks for limited washing and tea/coffee etc. We also have a few cases of beer, but sadly none cold now the fridge is off, 2 bottles of sherry, one gin, one whiskey and a case of white and a case of red. We shall not die of thrist!

We have enough juice to power our instruments for a few days, but we shall restrict this to night time only and in case it gets really light. when it is useful to know where the wind is coming from. Sadly I only have a couple of hours left on the computer battery and type very slowly so the blogs may get shorter and may stop. Don't worry if they do. We are in good heart and will cope with this obstacle as we have all the others in this very challenging race.

We shall also have to ration ourselves on the iTunes, but Kevin does have a solar gorilla which should recharge phones but not iPads. I am keeping my iPad charged for when we get closer to St Lucia as I have all the Caribbean charts on that.

Looking ahead we shall also need a tow into Rodney Bay, but I have no doubt that will be arranged for us. We have plenty of batteries to power the handheld GPS so we do know where we are.

So as I said a game of two halves - each with its own challenges. We have weathered the worst that the Atlantic Ocean has thrown at us so far, bloodied and wet, but unbowed. Now we seem to sailing into better weather, but most of our creature comforts are gone - or will be soon. Through it all Selene has carried us faithfully and has clearly been revelling in the conditions - where else could she power reach for days on end above 8 kts. You can hear her cantering along and humming to herself in the night. What a great boat she is.

On a lighter note, and before I finish, the joke of the night last night was from Kevin this time. Lily has been feeling a little under the weather and has not been able to eat much yesterday, so when Kevin and I were on together for the middle watch and decided to have a midnight feast to cheer ourselves up, i found a small packet of the Spanish equivalent of peperami, which I seem to remember Lily enjoyed as a small child. Naturally her tastes are far more sophisticated these days. Well the peperami packet contained 5 small sausages - Kevin thought that two each for us and one for Bob when he came on watch about an hour later was the ideal way to share the spoils as we were on a staggered watch system. My view was that he could do as he wished, but I wanted to donate my second one to Lily on the basis it might cheer her up. Kevin gallantly offered to give up his second to Lily as well and I asked him to keep the sausages until he was relieved by Lily in 2 hours time by which time I would be asleep. After a lengthy pause Kevin questioned the probity of me asking him to give my daughter a sausage in the middle of the night. . . .

Hopefully we shall be on air again briefly tomorrow. Selene signing off for now - all well here, don't worry about us we shall endure.


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