Friday 28 August 2015

Rodrigues Inbound Day 11

Hi everyone,
We are currently in position 17 38S 72 36E sailing at 6.5 knots on a course of 275M.  The wind is 20-25 knots from the SE with a 2m sea, 2m SE swell and long period 2m SSW swell.  We are under double-furled yankee and double-reefed main.  Our day's run was 153nm and we have 540nm to go.

We had a good sail yesterday after the heavier clouds moved away, leaving typical trade wind cumulus.  The wind held in at around 25 knots for most of the day with a period when it reached around 30 knots.  We were well reefed down and the apparent wind was on the beam so the ride wasn't too bad.

Overnight the wind was 18-24 knots under a brightly moonlit sky.  Very spectacular.  On watch was very pleasant and off-watch we slept well.

Chasing the Sunset

When we departed CKI our main water tanks were full (of course).  We  didn't fill our jerry cans apart from the 10 litre emergency can.  So we decided to close the valve between the main 60 litre and 80 litre main tanks in case of a leak.  We draw from the smaller one.  Amazingly we still have not emptied the tank after 10 days.  This water is used for everything except hand washing and toothbrushing in the head.  The head sink has its own 30 litre bladder supply which is also still not empty.  Talk about water conservation!  And yes, we do wash - every other day!

An interesting aspect of navigation on long passages is changing compass variation.  We started the trip with quite small variation (like on the WA west coast).  We now have 13 degrees of W variation.  Forces one back to remembering the ditties, in particular "Variation West Compass Best".  So our current course of 270M is 257T.

Trust all's well where you are.

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