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Cleone - CLEONE Leg 17 Day 3 - Time Zones



More of the same, and more to come.
 
We work in various time-zones on board.  Our log is kept in UTC (Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or ZULU time for the military folks), Rally Time is the local time at our start point (Cocos; UTC plus 6 hours and 30 minutes - how inconvenient) and there is also Ship's Time.  On board, our routine is geared to the latter, which varies according to where we are.  Every 15 degrees of longitude around the earth (east or west) represents a time change of minus or plus an hour.  So at 90 degrees east of Greenwich we are in Time Zone GMT plus 6 hours (we are ahead of you now - remember the dreaded lost day when we tripped over the International Date Line?).  Changing our clocks as we go on means that our day more or less accords with sunrise and sunset, and it means that when we arrive in Mauritius (GMT plus 4 hours), we won't suffer Sail Lag and we will (or should) already have our watches correctly set.
 
Keeping track of these different times is difficult - the Skipper rang his wife at three in the morning during one stop-over which was, to say the least, very unpopular!  But the Skipper thinks he's cracked it now.  He keeps one GPS on ZULU time, the other on Rally Time and the Ship's Clock and his own watch on Ship's time.  He's promised to change the time today to the more convenient GMT plus 6 hours, and the crew (and others) wait with baited breath to see whether he gets his radio schedule at the right time or not.  And they are also interested to see who gets the extra half-hour tacked onto his watch.  Minutes spent horizontal are at a premium at the moment.
 
Meanwhile, we are still rattling along at seven knots or so, with the wind pulsing at around 25 knots.  In the early hours of the morning, the Skipper was obviously bored; he let the full Genoa out and he shook out the reef in the Mizzen.  Needless to say, this was a short-lived strategy.  A bare half-hour later he was struggling to re-furl the Genoa, and replace the reef in the Mizzen.  It's always easier to unreef than reef, and the former is often regretted at leisure.
 
The Ginger Garlic Beef Stir Fry was very popular with the punters, though the Damaged Lip brigade found the Soy Sauce a bit hard on the inside of the mouth.  Nevertheless, we all survived and pronounced it delicious.  And Alex is hard at his mysterious work again in the Galley as I type this - a special for lunch is in the offing, but the traditional Cold Beer is alarmingly absent.  Chris is doing the Skipper's trick at the helm, so I must stop and relieve him. 
 
It's been classic trade-wind sailing (again) and we are another 167 miles to the good!
 
All well with us, and best wishes to everyone,
 
James, Norfy (Chris) and Alex
Yacht Cleone
14o19'S 088o45'E



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