Blog Day 83
Latitude 49 43.49S
Longitude 100 17.29E
Barometer 1015
Air Temp 3c
Local Time 0254 UTC+7
LIVE TRACKER
Hi all,
Well its getting real and exciting out here as I just changed over to my second last time zone, only one more hour to go before reaching Albany time, so that to me is a real marker of time passing. Last night the winds remained light and were blowing in at 2-4 knots for most of the night, for a short time they filled in to 6-8 knots before dropping back out at sunrise, so it has been a really long slow day and there was very little to be done about it but wait.
I swear it seems that for every mile closer to home I get the weather gods decide to keep throwing me extra challenges to keep me on my toes, kelp on the keel, no wind for almost 2 days then Northerly winds when I want to go North... And so on. And with the light winds last night and poor Climate Action Now rolling around in the reducing swell with the sails flapping and the alarms tripping meant that sleep was close to impossible over the night and so I only managed a few hours over the afternoon before waking just before dark.
I was a little annoyed at myself because I had been planning on waking early enough to be able to change out the broken wind generator blades but it was already falling dark at 4.30 pm. I made some porridge and decided to go and do it anyway as the weather wasn't likely to get any better and we were currently sailing in 6-8 knots of wind and the winds were due to increase around 8pm to 15 knots and that would make the work much harder. So, using my head torch I grabbed my tools and the collection of remaining wind generator blades that I had and went on deck. I needed to see what I was working with. When I took a closer look I had 4 blades that were from the locker inside and were all cracked at some point but not all the way through, so I felt that they were still workable to a degree, and anticipated that the wind generators were going to vibrate like mad, but they would still generate power. I then had two remaining blades on the port wind generator and one remaining blade on the starboard wind generator - all of those were also cracked.
I very carefully took down the plate the blades attach too (the last thing you want to hear while doing this is a ping, ping, plop...) and then switched out the blades before setting them back up. I have some more weather coming and it looks like I will be sailing mostly on a port tack (winds blowing over the port side, boat lists to starboard) for the remainder of my trip so I opted to make one set with the better quality blades and put this on the port side and then using the really badly cracked blades, make up the other set and put this on the starboard side. I don’t expect the starboard ones to last all that long, but the little bit of power I have from it in the meantime will be good, as my fuel stores are starting to get a little low. With these extra delays I would like to get a little wiggle room for it.
With my job complete, I went back below to defrost before making a dinner of 2 minuet noodles. Sounds wonderful right? Well, I have managed to make it a Lisa way, and create my own sauce, as most of them are not vegan with the flavouring. I use a table spoon of curry paste, two table spoons of powdered coconut milk, some freeze dried corn, peas and tomato flakes and the amazingly wonderful ABC Sauce and we have a winner for a quick but hearty meal that both warms and fills me up.
The winds were starting to reach 20 knots after dinner, and I still have my light air Dimension Polyant No 1 jib out and the full mainsail up and it was a little too much wind for that arrangement, so instead of changing out the jib to the smaller one I ended up just furling a reef in the No 1 jib and keeping that flying. The reason for this is that this sail is mounted much further up on the deck and with the storm jib still being up, I get a better gap between the sails which gives me more speed. If it gets much stronger I will need to change it out completely, but for now I am working hard trying to make up for the time lost while I drifted around. I am doing a good job with this arrangement of keeping the speeds above 9 knots, so I will hold it while I can.
The timeline has blown out a little because of the adverse weather and that darn kelp but a few good days with some strong winds and surfing conditions should allow me to catch up the time, however the winds are filling in from the N to NW direction, so I will be reaching and sometimes sailing upwind towards the finish. This will slow me down a little, as I won’t be able to surf as much, but I plan on working quite hard to get to land. I have less than 700 nm to the rounding mark where I will be crossing my outgoing track before altering the course to the North and sailing that final run so not long now at all.
I am really looking forward to dry land but I still have some challenges ahead so for now I am going to try for some sleep but before I go I would like to take the opportunity to thank the following degree sponsor.
Thank you to:
099 East - Jenny Rickerby - dictated "to all the amazing volunteers in Albany who helped Lisa get on her way". Thank you so much Jenny. Jenny has been an amazing volunteer in Albany, now a dear friend and has helped me reach the start line and now finish line in so many different ways. Purchasing a degree is yet another way that she is supporting me so a huge thank you to you Jenny and to all those who have helped along the way. Thank you.
Goodnight.
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