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Jo - 14:49:21N 57:25:71W



Wednesday 10th December 2014

....only 2 more big sleeps and we should be there! However, at the moment we are ‘bobbing’ again; around 10 knots of wind and a boat speed of between 4-5 knots.  The wind is just north of east and we are on a heading of about 225 (SW), trying to keep the boat moving by sailing 150 off the wind under poled out genoa and main. It has become unbearably humid, with interludes of colder rain showers which are very refreshing.

Yesterday PM we decided as the sea was relatively calm, we’d tackle the broken forward heads (WC).  By a process of elimination, we deduced that the problem was a blocked pipe between the WC and the holding tank. A relatively easy problem to fix you would have thought. Without going into too much detail (!) between a coat hanger and a shower hose we managed to unblock the pipe after 4 sweaty hours up to our wotsits in ****! The biggest problem was that the blocked pipe was just a little longer than any of the rodding implements we had. We tried every trick in the book including the dinghy pump to pressurise the system and clear the blockage. The problem was largely due to a build up of lime scale in the pipe and a reducer which restricts the inlet into the tank from a reasonable 30mm to just under 20mm. Happy that the WC was now working, we finally got to bed late after a quick canned meal (chilli con carne with rice) which unfortunately resembled the stuff we’d been shovelling! Strangely our appetites were somewhat subdued!

We struck another culinary high for lunch today; tinned corned beef! It’s been a while and it will be a while longer before I try it again. As soon as George opened the can, it started oozing out and he had to momentarily stick it  in the freezer simply so it could be sliced. Once it was in a freshly (part) baked roll with mayonnaise, tomato and cucumber it was surprisingly passable though George had to sell it for seconds; never usually a problem!

We are now preparing for our St Lucia arrival by reviewing our food stocks and sorting out mosquito netting for all hatches and port holes after reports of a mosquito borne virus with an unpronounceable name.


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