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Exody - Days 68/69 - Power and Water



Lucky to be making 5.5 knots as the winds have stayed down at under 10 knots and are forecast to stay like this - fortunately the direction has gone slightly to the north so we are not quite dead downwind and have both sails out to port. Today many other boats in the fleet have submitted engine hours. We have improved yesterday's 119 noon run (with engine) to today's of 133 (without engine). The two frontrunners of the fleet, 400 miles ahead will reach Hiva Oa today Friday 20th and the next batch of three Saturday sometime. Even with lower winds (+ some engine use)we are still targeting daylight on Tuesday 24th - with just over 500 miles to run.

More blue sea and sky, one more dolphin visitation, no more fish - though we lost a prize lure yesterday evening - actually seeing the culprit (a Dorado) jump clean out the water in his successful attempt to bite it off. We now reckon incidentally that the previously reported Marlin was in fact a Sailfish- same family.

We made water today as we do every other day - usually 5-10 litres which takes up to two hours- used for drinking as it tastes better than the tank water and saves the filter! Watermakers need to be regularly used to avoid the need for 'pickling' of their fine mesh membranes with biocide chemicals. Only four out of 15 boats took on water at Galapagos showing that the rest of the fleet are self sufficient with their larger capacity watermakers plus diesel generators to feed them. The highest capacity one in the fleet could fill Exody's tank and spare water jerrycans about 300 litres- in just over an hour. For boats so equipped, daily showers are the norm, the toilets freshwater-flushed and the deck hose 'available' for use. I think we would like such water liberation on Exody !

We make the water when the sun is high and the solar panels have already refilled the batteries after the night's effort in keeping the fridge going, an effort that often needs to be supplemented by the towing generator, especially when very light winds increase our dependence on the electrical autopilot to keep a direct course. The hungry SSB Radio is also used when the sun is high and all charging of handheld devices is limited to the same few hours. So far we have avoided putting the engine on just to charge the batteries.

Peter (Skipper)

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