Admiral’s Update No 12 2015

Greetings Everyone,

Midnight last night we crossed the equator at 85 deg 25 west.  We though about doing some sort of ducking ceremony but settled to celebrate with a glass of Baileys.  We’ve had a mixed bag of weather from sudden squalls sending us flying in the dark to reef the sails to absolutely no wind.  We’ve done a cork-screw course heading west with the wind then motoring south for direction and will probably set an all time slow record for the passage past the Galapagos.

In between time I’m reading a series of Patrick O’Brien novels — sea stories of English sailors at the time of the Napoleonic wars.  It puts things in perspective — an engine to get us going when we need to and  a better diet than salted pork and weevilly biscuits!!

Only 3300 nautical miles to go to the Marquesas.

God bless,

Pam and Phil

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Admiral’s Update No 11 2015

Greetings Everyone,

Before we left on Sunday we had our third informal worship time with the Christians we’d met in the marina and said goodbye to them.

The trip through the canal is interesting.  I didn’t realise what a tourist attraction it is with people booking cruises just to travel the canal and back-packers begging for the opportunity to be a line handler on a yacht.  We went through the three “up” locks with no trouble rafted to a large catamaran but had a minor drama the next day coming out of the “down” locks.  This time we were rafted up to a tug with a smaller yacht rafted to our other side.  We were told to unraft and let the tug leave the last lock first and the wash of his propeller and the salt water mixing with the fresh created a lot of turbulence which pushed us towards the stone wall of the locks.  One of the wind generator blades was chipped when it hit the wall.  Thankfully we had some spares.

Apologies to those of you who got up early to watch us on the Miraflories lock web cam.  Our transit time was changed from 3pm to 11am and then back to 3pm.  Phil wasn’t able to get a connection to relay the final change.

We left Panama the next evening loaded up with fresh fruit and veges and two bunches of green bananas and had the most beautiful moonlight sail ever down to Las Perlos Islands where we anchored and Phil dived down and cleaned some growth from the hull while I cooked seven meals for the first part of the trip to the Marquesas.  We are now in our fourth day with light winds, anything from 3 to 15 knots and two knots of favourable current which is all that keeps us moving at times.  The seas are calm, sails are goose-winged, wind vane working a treat, 260 miles under our belt and I’m not feeling sick.  So far so good.  Only 3700 miles to go!!

Thanks for our interest and prayers.

God bless,

Pam and Phil

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Admiral’s Update No 10 2015

We used to know a catamaran called Slow Motion — the only cat we ever sailed past and Phil called it No Motion. Well maybe we should change our name to that. We’ve been here two months yesterday. Phil had to dive down and remove the barnacles out of the toilet outlet with a screwdriver. Great Job!!

The new furler arrived and the rigger installed it — not the two days he predicted but in a week. By that time the new sail arrived. BUT it didn’t fit!! Phil had been arguing with the rigger who is also the furler agent, that the bolt rope groove was not the size he had stipulated. But the rigger assured him it was — even in writing. What should have been an 8.5mm grove was actually only a 6mm. There was fur flying between the insurance company, the rigger, the furler company each blaming the other until Phil sent them all an e-mail listing the eighteen conversations he’d had with the rigger, including copies of e-mails, etc, which showed without doubt where the blame lay. Finally the sails were altered — three more days and $US600 later.

The good news is we now have a departure date going through the canal on Sunday 3rd April and Monday 4th. For those who are interested, you will be able to see us on the Miraflores lock (Panama Canal) webcam. It will be sometime between 2pm and 3pm our time which is 15 hours behind Sydney time. So it will be early morning for Australia. If anyone can we would like someone to get a screen shot of us in the lock. We will wave our big Australian flag.

From there we head 4000 nautical miles to the Marquesas. Please pray for some good wind, especially for the first week or so as we are crossing the doldrums.

God bless,

Pam and Phil

 

Note from Admin, here is the address:

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

The picture refreshes about every 30 seconds. The site administrator may be unable to get the screenshot due to a wedding photography commitment. If anyone can get it and foward me a copy I will publish it.

 

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