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Aretha - Caribbean Sea. Day 2. 12 12 North, 64 43 West




> Flat seas. Consistent breeze. Good speed. Happy well fed crew.
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> Think that sums things up so far today. Apart from the boat niggles that is.
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> Currently about 22 miles North of the Island of La Blanquilla. The Venezualuan coast runs all the way along beneath that. We’re about 150 miles away from Caracas. The coastline looks inviting and the diving and swimming around the Islands is meant to be brilliant. That said it’s off our route for 2 reasons. One, we need to get a wiggle on to make our Panama crossing and secondly its not meant to be that safe (with the exception of certain islands like Bonaire, Aruba and Curacao) so we’re giving it a wide berth.
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> We continue to settle into boat life. Today was the first day of the Values prizes for behaviour that fits our boat values. Willow and Caroline were our 2 winners today. It’s fascinating to see the impact particularly on Bluebell for highlighting and rewarding good behaviour. From a fitful start to life at sea again yesterday she is now a helpful and happy crew member onboard. She’s been busy in the galley making Tuna fish fingers with egg and bread crumbs and lightly frying them in olive oil. She went from yesterday “i hate fish..throw it over” to “you know that actually smells really good - i want to try it…..to can we cook another 10 fish fingers”.
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> Nichola has been nothing short of outstanding today. She’s experienced strong sea legs so far and has been in the thick of things. We set up the spinnaker pole today and poled out the headsail. She ran the full briefing for the boat and walked Caroline through everything and ran the manoeuvre’s on deck. I think she surprised herself with how much she knew and felt the satisfaction of seeing boat speed shoot up to what is now a steady 6.5 to 8 knots in the right direction from only 12 knots of wind.
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> In the early hours of last night I found our engine compartment was full of water. Never a happy thing to find. First job was to bail the water out. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You need to be a contortionist to climb into the engine room and get your arms underneath the gearbox to get to the water. This is one job that I struggle with bending my back in different directions. Unphased, Nichola gets down and dirty in the oil and 2 hours later the compartment is bone dry. It really isn’t a pretty job and I am full of admiration at the way she works through this without fuss.
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> This is the start of the problem solving though. The more important job now is working out why we have water there in the first place. We run the engine and with a torch are looking for signs of water bubbling through any of the pipes. We quickly find one culprit. It’s the mixer elbow on the engine exhaust. We had this repaired in Las Palmas and it looks like it has gone again. This is one we need to get fixed ASAP to avoid fumes coming back into the engine room. We email Oyster with the part details and fingers crossed they can get the spare part and ideally to my sister Pip who we are hoping can find room for the part in her luggage when she joins us in Panama in a couple of weeks : ).
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> Mechanically all else seems to be working well - we ran the generator and water maker today and all seems in good order including the repaired mixer for the generator exhaust. We are learning a lot about boats for sure!
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> Yesterday we saw plenty of shipping working its way across the Venezualan coast - container ships and cruise liners bound for Trinidad. Today has been much quieter and we’ve barely seen anything and no yachts either. We’ve had some birds and flying fish for company. For the past 4 hours, we’ve had some birds hitching a lift on top of our sat comms dish. It’s interesting to read in our guide books that this coast line along to Columbia and Panama has some of the best fishing in the world and is the place where more big game fishing records have been set than in any other part of the world. Columbus is poised and ready. No more fish today but we have been working our way through yesterdays tuna - the grown ups lunch today was Ceviche - thin tuna slices cooked for a few minutes in just the juices of 5 squuezed limes and lemons with some crushed chillies. Doesn’t get much better than this.
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> It’s certainly great to be back at sea and the calm conditions are set to stay for another couple of days which is super for getting everyone happy and settled and clocking off the miles to Panama. We’re busily reading up on the Panama crossing and appreciating more what a big deal this is. The history of the canal is fascinating itself. Some brief facts:
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> - It opened for traffic on August 15th 1914
> - Since then there have been more than 850,000 transits
> - Over the past 10 years, $100m has been spent on streamlining and improving the facilities
> - There are 3 locks on either side and they are connected in the middle by Lake Gatun (which has plenty of crocodiles)
> - It took over 10 years to build it with the labour of 75,000 men and women and cost almost $400m.
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> Passing through is not for the faint hearted. You need to be pretty quick as there are hefty fines for dawdling as the commercial ships going through here are on tight time lines and this is a quick turn around business. We’ll be going through rafted up with other yachts and will have a pilot on board to navigate us through. Each boat needs to have 4 line handlers on board as well as the helmsman for the 2 day crossing. We’re excited that my sister Pippa will be joining us and for the fourth crew will probably team up with some of the World ARC boats to help each other out.
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> All is well onboard and life is simpler for being back at sea.
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> Over and out from Team Aretha,
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> PS we are being tracked by Yellow Brick tracker so you can get our position every 4 hours via their app/ website.


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