Day 9 - Isla San Francisco, Still Windy

Narrow separation between north and south sides

It was a blustery night, with the boat being knocked from side to side. The ST60 wind instrument reported a maximum wind speed of 32 knots. I visited the foredeck 4 or 5 times during the night. For a couple of nights we had been plagued by an occasional knocking sound somewhere on the foredeck. It seemed like every time I went on deck things would go quiet. On one visit I moved the boarding ladder and oars from the foredeck to the cockpit. That didn't solve the problem so I went back up and discovered that the anchor chain was taut, working in conjunction with the snubber. It was possible that the chain was moving around as the boat swayed. I loosened the chain and we didn't notice the knocking for the rest of the little that was left of the night.
I set the alarm for 1 AM in the hopes that we would be able to hear Radio Australia and learn more about Cyclone Yasi, and we hit pay dirt. We heard the familiar introductory tune to ABC news and heard a good report on the progress of the storm which had fortunately veered to the west before it reached heavily populated areas. Nevertheless a half meter of rain was dumped in the area, causing the inevitable flooding, and there was heavy damage to the banana plantations. Afterward we heard the "PM" program with amazing clarity.

Betsy Ross Brenda at work

In the morning I brought the Mexican courtesy flag into the cabin and soon Brenda was doing a "Betsy Ross" and mending the tattered end of the flag. We'll go easy with the flag for the rest of the voyage (i.e. bring it down in high winds) and it should see us back to La Paz.
I spent more time with the Navigator software. In actually keeps track of 66 celestial objects, plus Aries. It can print 3-day pages of the nautical almanac starting at any nominated date. It would be useful to have hard copy of the almanac to cover the expected times of the approach to Drake Passage. The software has a second major facility: charting. It is possible to import scanned charts in GIF, JPG, or BMP format. The coordinates of three points on the image are keyed into the program, which will then relate it to the real world. Thereafter all sorts of chart navigation features are available. However, it is unlikely that I will exploit this feature because I'm already using Dave's excellent chart navigation package.

Broken Navman, third from right

The Rutland wind charger has come into its own in these conditions. It's output ranges from 0.5 amps during the lulls to 6 and 7 amps during the gusts. I figure that this represents at least 48 amp hours over a 24 hour period. The sky cleared last night and by noon the solar panels were contributing 6 amps. Along with the clear sky came colder temperatures. At noon the temperature in the cabin was 16.7C (62F)and Brenda and I were wearing sweaters. Brenda had her Ice Breaker merino wool skin tight pants under her blue jeans.
I happened to notice that the cover of the venerable Navman depth sounder display was so loose that was amazed that it had not fallen off. I removed it and saw the innards of buttons, wires, and electronic components. Below it were bits of the plastic fittings that had broken up. This could not have been due to trauma, since it is in a well protected area along with the other displays. I taped the cover back on and was pleased to see that it was still working. I plan to permanently seal it with epoxy after we return to La Paz. According to my records it was Feb 2010 when I installed the Raymarine ST60 wind indicator, which would mean that Arnold and I did it in Port Townsend. I thought it prudent to install an additional new depth sounder to avoid the risk of losing depth information if the Navman dropped dead in the middle of nowhere.
We spent the rest of the day on the boat. By mid afternoon the wind had calmed down somewhat. The morning's weather reports indicated that the wind would calm down on Saturday, the day after tomorrow, so we expected to spend another day at Isla San Francisco.
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