DAY 14 - Fresh Water Stock

Yesterday afternoon I plumbed the water tanks to see how I have been traveling. The starboard water tank was of more interest because it supports the galley and therefore supplies water for cooking, drinking,and what little fresh water rinsing there is (for clothes, myself, and some dishes). I also I must also confess that I use the galley sink for washing my hands and brushing my teeth because of the salt water tap. That leaves little demand on port tank which services the head, since I use that tap only for washing my hands after using the head.

It was a good day for plumbing since the boat was ambling along at 4.4 kt on a fairly even keel. My technique is to touch bottom with the measuring stick with a quick down and up motion to minimize the effects of lapping water. I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised with the results. The starboard tank contained 115 liters of fresh water out of a capacity of 140 liters. The port tank contained 130 liters of fresh water out of a capacity of 140 liters. I make that a total usage of 35 liters of fresh water over 13 days which represents (scribble scribble scribble) ... 2.7 liters per day. By my reckoning that leaves 245 liters of fresh water which at the rate of 2.7 liters per day represents a whopping 90 days. And let's not forget that I am also carrying 86 liters of spare water in containers.

It is possible that the readings may be optimistic if, for example, the tanks are not level but are a bit lower at the stern end where the access bung is. All I can say is that today's measurement represents the best current estimate and another measurement in another two weeks will give a better overall estimate. The 2.7 liters of water per day is plausible because I've been extremely parsimonious with water consumption. I use salt water to heat the pre packed meals and for 99% of the dish washing. To date I have used a total of 4 liters of fresh water for rinsing clothes and 3 liters for rinsing myself after a salt water bath. The rice and spaghetti require some fresh water but I recover some of that in the sense that it provides me with moisture reducing my need for drinking water.

The boat ambled along at 4 kt for the rest of the afternoon.

We had an extra long radio session (about 20 minutes) in which Richard, Jeff, Ryan, and I discussed the weather. Richard was on the move again, headed more or less east. Ryan is on an Endeavor 37 accompanied by two other men. He was at 25.05N, 158.24W which put him about 220 nm north of Oahu (bound for Seattle). They do not get weather fax so I reported what I could see in my weather faxes and agreed to supply them with this kind of information every day. Jeff generated a large-scale grib file and it looked like Ryan would run into the middle of a high in a few days, and it would be difficult to avoid. I could see that Richard, Ryan, and I have similar problems with the weather: no clear run, but rather good times and bad as the Lows and Highs do their dance around the ocean.

I cooked a spaghetti dish in which I included half a can of corned beef. The corned beef is top quality stuff out of Brazil but I it us usually too salty for me. In spaghetti it was just right.

The wind had dropped by bed time and I was hoping that it would hold up long enough to allow me a good night's sleep. Fortunately that turned out to be the case. There was just enough wind from the right angle with the Pacific ocean just pacific enough to keep the boat moving all night at between 3.5 and 4.1 kt.

At 7.30 this morning the wind shifted, I gybed to the NW, tried sailing for a while with a wind speed of less than 4 kt, then was forced drop all sails. I began drifting east at 1.2 kt. It looks like I got just a little bit too close to the center of that High passing behind me from my E to my SW. Three degrees to the west there is a band of good wind. It had been a good run of 720 nm toward Seattle over a 6-day period.

At 9.30 AM I was drifting ahull.

A hour later I noticed that the wind had resumed its direction from the S/SE and after a few minutes I unfurled the jib and found myself moving ENE at 3.5 kt. Much as I tried I could not get either Jeff nor Vistar to do their steering duties. I thought that it might be a sail balancing issue and I wanted more canvas up anyway so I hoisted the mainsail. Vistar took over the steering duties with the boat doing 4.2 kt on a 7 kt wind, heading toward the Columbia river, between Seattle and Portland to the south.

Pachuca had covered 95 nm in the previous 24 hours. I was at 35.20N, 147.45W, 930 nm NE of Oahu, 1300 nm from Juan de Fuca.