Day 32 - 500 to Go

I had the best Sailmail session in weeks. For the first time the Sailmail propagation matrix reported three frequencies at 100% at the 7 PM time slot and I was able to have a complete session using the lowest frequency suggested with everything sent and received.

Because of the early Sailmail session I was able to turn in at 9 PM, hoping that the wind and course would hold steady until morning. However at 11 PM I was waken by the banging of the boom which indicates insufficient wind. Fortunately there was sufficient wind although it had lightened, and for some reason Jeff was steering us downwind to the NE. It took 30 minutes to put the boat on a beam reach and coax Jeff into holding the new course. The problem with the Monitor was that whenever the wind surged the increase weather helm would cause the boat to round up toward the wind, causing the headsail to flutter. After watching the situation for over an hour I returned to the sack at 1 AM and slept until 5 minutes before the 6 AM alarm for the SAMMNet session went off.

We had a very good SAMMNet session starting at 6.30 AM, only the second successful one since my initial contact several days ago. Graham seemed happy to hear from me and he copied all of situation report with no need for repetition. Graham had begun his transmission with a Securite (a safety message) about a 40 ft monohull, Arctic Tern III, in transit from St Helena to Fernando de Noronha, overdue in reporting. After I transmitted my situation report Graham asked me to contact Sam on his frequency to ask him to issue the Securite during his session, which was about to start. On Sam's frequency I could hear a dialogue going on, though Sam was coming in very faint. When things went quiet I hailed Sam, hoping that I wasn't breaking into a transmission. Through the static I heard "Bravo Whiskey", the last 2 letters of my ham call sign, so I passed the message to Sam blind, hoping that he could hear me. (Everybody, including Sailmail, can hear me much better than I can hear them.)

When I got back to Graham's frequency I could hear him calling. I told him of my questionable success with Sam, then received a superb wind prediction through to Tuesday at noon. In general all winds will be stronger than what I had expected from the grib file. All winds were in the 15-20 or 15-25 kt range, with only one in the 10-20 range. This put into doubt the becalming that I had been expecting on New Years Day, but that suited me fine. Graham finished the conversation by giving me a warm best wishes for New Years.

At 7.30 AM we were still moving well, doing 4.5 kts to the east. We were 540 miles out of Cape Town.

At mid morning I set up my first backup computer, the Toshiba that I used to get around the Horn and received a new keyboard in the USA. I knew that the computer had the Noonsite article on visiting Cape Town by boat stored as a Zotero file. To my great pleasure the machine booted up with no problem and reported 81% or 2 hr 35 min of battery life. I transferred the data to a USB thumb drive then shut the machine down and put it away. All three backup computers are traveling first class in their own carry bags which are then stored in clothes drawers well protected from shock and water.

At noon our position was 35S49, 008E20, yielding a n-n distance that surprised me at 128 miles in the direction 083. The barometer had risen one point to 1026 HPa, the highest the I had recorded during the passage. Graham had reported a High at 75S and the prime meridian, and it appeared that we were benefiting from its rotating winds as it swept toward the east. We were 510 miles from Cape Town, and still moving well to the ENE.

I decided to take advantage of the sunshine and moderate conditions to use some of my precious reserves of fresh water to do some clothes washing. I had about 70 liters of water in the jugs and knew that I had at least half of the water in the 280 liter capacity main tanks remaining because the port tank of 140 liters barely been touched and the starboard tank was still delivering water to the galley. I estimated that I had been living on 3 to 4 liters of fresh water per day.

The problem with the clothes wasn't so much dirt or even sweat, but rather salt water contamination, which meant that they were clammy and unusable. I particularly needed some dry heavy track suit pants. I used about 15 liters of fresh water to wash and rinse the clothes in the cockpit then hung the on the overhead lifelines. At about that time the sun disappeared and the wind shifted to the SE which meant that we would have to beat into the wind slightly, which would mean salt water spray all over the clothes. So after only 15 minutes or so to allow the wind to shake out the enough water to prevent dripping I brought the clothes inside and hung them around the cabin, so I was now surrounded by 4 T-shirts, 5 underpants, 6 pairs of socks, and one pair of pants.

After lunch (small bowl of rolled oats and one vitamin pill) and a nap I saw at 3 PM that we were 498 miles from Cape Town, so I would get my wish to spend New Years eve within 500 miles of our destination. Better yet, the moderate wind was persisting and I hoped to make significant progress in the next 24 hours. I checked my ship's log and saw that I had spent last New Years Eve at 49S16, 98W42, 1200 miles NW of Cape Horn.

It was time for another bean and lentil stew. As usual I had soaked the beans and lentils overnight and this afternoon was the chop chop phase. I found plenty of the usual ingredients on hand. Into the pot went 4 potatoes, 3 carrots, 4 onions, and enough garlic to kill a small horse. OK, so the potatoes were starting to sprout and I had to cut away a few bad bits from the carrots, but that certainly didn't bother me. I've still got plenty of potatoes, onions, garlic, and 2 carrots, which means that another stew is possible. However that is moot now, I hope, because of our proximity to Cape Town. I've also still got plenty of eggs and cheese on hand, and found one last orange still intact. I haven't had bread for a while but have gotten used to doing without it. Unless we get becalmed and I wind up with plenty of time on my hands it is unlikely that I'll do any baking, though it would have been good to test the vitality of the yeast.

For the wine I decided to leave the last two bottles of Finca la Delfina malbec 2010 for Brenda to taste in CT and selected an Esmeralda Fernandez 2010 malbec that Brenda and I took a shine to in Mar del Plata. Brenda will recognize the red label when he sees it. It certainly suits my palate and I think that I sailed from Argentina with two cases of it. To date I have been very disciplined in restraining myself to half a bottle of wine per day, but after all this is New Years Eve, so I just might get real naughty and drink the entire bottle over two sessions: pre dinner and midnight.

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