Fair Encounter - Day 3 - More problems and domestic duties

At breakfast we agreed to gybe the mainsail and pole out the genoa as soon as possible so that we could alter course a little further west. Unfortunately, before we could put our plans into action the mainsail backed and John immediately pulled the mainsheet amidships while I released the preventer. We had just changed over the preventer so we could alter course and gybe the sail when there was a tearing sound, the sail split from a few inches from the leech (back edge of the sail) most of the way across to where we had stuck on a chafe patch. Fortunately the tear was just below the first reef so we went head to wind to reef down the sail then we gingerly turned back into the wind, letting out the sail as we went, until we were back on course and the preventer was tight. The next task was to put up the other pole, much heavier and somewhat shorter than the whisper pole which folded in half on Sunday afternoon. Once that was set up we pulled out almost all the genoa and have been sailing wing and wing ever since. If we get any calms I'll try to sew the sail back together on my machine but I don't hold out too much hope as to the strength of any repair.

The rest of the day was just about trouble free, except for the recalcitrant e-mail system which seems to work fine in the evenings but goes on strike during the day. I did the washing while John ran the watermaker. There are three main approaches to the washing: wear the same clothes every day and the filthy rags will drop off when you reach the Caribbean; carry on as at home and you will have several large bags of dirty washing when you reach the other side; my favourite - select a variety of clothes, enough for about a week and rinse out every few days. When you get to St Lucia you will have a small collection of clothing that needs a good wash or binning! Top tip - if you time the washing with the water making you can use the nearly clean water you first produce rather than tipping it away. After the washing I did the gardening. There is a competition running to see who can keep Basil alive and healthy on the crossing. I bought a pot of small Basil which turned out to be 5 plugs so I bought a small bag of potting compost and some inexpensive food storage boxes which John punched holes in. We now have 2 pots of basil to nurture.

We're still eating well: crispy coated chicken legs with fresh vegetables, fruit salad (the best bits of an apple, the good half of a soggy Satsuma and a ripe banana) with yoghurt. I'm determined to waste as little food as possible though most of the celery went to feed the fishes! You can't win them all.

We had a good day's run of 133.9 miles midday Monday to midday Tuesday and 100 of these were towards our destination.

Joyce