One Year Since Fremantle Departure

Hi everyone,
Today is the first anniversary of our departure from Fremantle.  It has been a foggy day here in Horta, perfect for boat work.

Zen Again at anchor in Horta harbour

We spent the last two days doing more post-arrival boat work including:

• Filled diesel jerry cans (@1euro/litre)
• Filled water jerry cans (free)
• On deck s/s cleaning
• Food stocktake and visit to the local supermarket
• Emptied, cleaned and repacked cockpit lockers
• Laundry
• Changed engine impeller (still looking perfect after 300 hours so kept as spare)
• Cleaned gas hob burner assemblies and nozzles (apres le deluge)
• Emptied, cleaned and repacked the quarterberth

It's hard to believe we've been cruising for a year already.  In some ways it seems like we left only yesterday but home does seems a very long way away.  It has been a busy but amazing year full of wonderful experiences.

Fremantle to Horta

In the 365 days we:

• logged 16,260nm (44nm/day)
• were at sea for 2924 hours (122 days or 33% or 133nm/day) 
• slept ashore for 14 days (all while touring in South Africa)
• ran the engine for 435 hours (18 days or 15% of sea time)
• consumed 800 litres of diesel
• consumed about 30 kg of propane gas
• consumed about 7 litres of fresh water daily while at sea
• cleared in/out of 14 jurisdictions

Good kit included:

• Ken Hayashi designed / Yamazaki Yachts built ST10.4 (ie the boat)
• Manson Supreme anchor
• Aries vane gear (30 years old and still going strong)
• Extreme Sails mainsail (those deep reefs are fantastic)
• Raymarine SPX5 autopilot (except ram/actuator)
• Iridium GO!
• Vesper XB8000 AIS transceiver with WiFi
• Icom IC-M802 HF/SSB
• Macbook Air computers (in general and apps OpenCPN, PW Offshore, DX Toolbox)
• iPads (in general and apps SEAiq, iNavX, WeatherTrack, GoSkyWatch)
• GoogleEarth imagery on OpenCPN and SEAiq
• SodaStream carbonator
• Force10 stove

Failures and notable wear included:

• Two Raymarine SPX5-GP autopilot rams/actuators
• Raymarine SeaTalk/NMEA0183 Interface Box (lightning near miss)
• Anchor chain replaced due to poor refurbishment job in Fremantle
• Lost two fenders (literally ripped away while in windy Simon's Town)
• Two gas detector sensors
• Masthead tricolour/anchor light
• Compass backlight
• Several lifejacket/danbuoy CO2 canisters
• Mainsail headboard carriage fractured
• Significant wear on the "yankee" headsail
• Chafing of the staysail foot (by lazy headsail sheet)
• Chafing of headsail halyard
• Significant wear on headsail sheet and boom brake lines
• Chafing of boom-bag where it rubs against the aft lower shrouds
• Hull topsides "fender rub" (while in Simon's Town)
• Sheath on Icom HF/SSB and Garmin VHF microphone cables disintegrated
• Wore out several ensigns - last one now looking very tatty

Engine parts and consumables included:

• 20 litres of engine oil, 1 litre of gearbox oil, 4 litres of engine coolant
• 6 oil filters, 5 fuel primary filters and 4 fuel secondary filters
• 2 V-belts
• 2 raw water pump impellers

We only have a few more weeks of cruising to go.  Once we reach the UK we'll be seeking jobs to pay for it all! ;)  We are looking forward to cruising around Europe when circumstances allow.  We expect to continue to live aboard.