Toilet Fixed and Moving Well

All afternoon we ran SE at about 6 knots, increasing to over 6.5 kt as evening fell.

We solved the riddle of the Jabsco toilet and got it working again. Research on the issue that I received from Stephen in Australia during the afternoon inspired me to have another look at the problem, which all logic told me must be the joker valve. While fiddling with the joker valve I decided to force it inside out and instantly I recognized it as the tightly sealed one way valve that I had recalled from earlier work. Just like that our problem was solved. We think that the huge back pressure caused by the blocked outlet hose forced the material back the wrong way through the joker valve turning it inside out. As bad luck would have it, the new joker valve in the refurbishment kit was also inverted, throwing us off the scent, so to speak.

At 4 PM Arnold performed a comprehensive load test and pronounced the loo a huge success.

What a relief. No more bucket. No more one-handed peeing over the side. The parts of the toilet that I replaced in the refurbishment process are in excellent condition so I am confident that I've got enough spares in hand to get me back to Australia OK.

Arnold went solo cooking the meal of rice and corned beef and did just fine. While I was washing the dishes he reported speeds of 8.0 and 8.1 knots. This was not sustained but we were indeed rocketing along and the high end of 7 knots.

I got out of the cot just after midnight and Arnold mentioned a bank 15 miles how head. "How deep?" I asked half asleep. "Eighteen meters" he replied. WHAT!!??? It was time for me to do the freaking out. In these heavy seas passing over an underwater mountain that rises steeply from 2000 meters to 18 meters is asking for big trouble: maybe just a rough sea, maybe breakers in the cockpit, or maybe a knockdown or perhaps a rollover. I didn't want to find out. To be fair, Arnold had spotted this bank many hours before but it had not concerned me then because it seemed so far away and I wasn't even sure that we'd reach the continental shelf this day. We decided to gybe the boat and stay off the continental shelf for as long as possible. Arnold noted that the ships seemed to be skirting the continental shelf. Our plan was to maintain this SSW course until dawn then gybe back and run more or less parallel to the continental shelf.

Arnold and I were both pleased with how the boat has been performing. We had a huge following sea to help us along, with a true wind of about 25 knots on a road reach. I could see that in these conditions running with a double reefed mainsail and tiny jib was superior to running with jib only as had been my tendency. The sail forces are better balanced for the helm, there is less rolling, and it puts most of the load on the mainsail which is much better able cope with these stresses than the jib and forestay.

We were also pleased with the boat systems. With the inefficient refrigerator shut down the combination of wind generator and solar panels was keeping up with our energy demands. We had not run the engine since leaving Ensenada and it looked like we might make it all the way to La Paz without having to charge the batteries with the engine. In these winds the wind charger was producing a steady 1-2 amps which adds up to a significant help over a 24 hour period.

The electronics has been outstanding. Because of our recent experience with fishing and sail boats that do not use AIS and can be difficult to spot in the dark we've taken to keeping the radar scanner on standby and turning on the transmitter every hour or so to see what is out there. Arnold is correct in his opinion that we can con the boat better from the comfort and safety of the navigation station than we can out in that cockpit with all of the associated discomforts and dangers.

And of course the Sailmail, grib files, and weather faxes have been extremely useful. I reviewed the latest grib file and saw that we could expect a moderation of the wind by 9 AM, with veering to become a northerly. This should give us a comfortable reach for the final run to Cabo San Lucas.

At 4.30 AM I was forced to wear ship back to the SE because I was about to cross a narrow lane formed by 3 ships heading NW and SE. That gave us 5 hours before we would reach the continental shelf. Later I realized that the ships had done me a favor by forcing me to tack because the wind eventually veered and we were able to lay a comfortable line along the edge of the continental shelf without having to go back to the SSW course.

As the grib file had predicted the wind moderated somewhat by 10 AM and we rolled out more jib to keep our boat speed above 6 knots.

At noon we were at 23N54, 112W34 and 158 miles from the tip of the Baja California peninsula. We had a noon-noon distance of 135 nautical miles - not bad for a double reefed mainsail and a tiny patch of jib.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com