7 July 2011
Having made a respectable 146nms in the first 24 hours, we've been chugging along at 5-6 knots ever since, settling into our new watch system. We thought we'd try out something new, especially so I could fit in the radio nets and not be on watch at the same time. It was Whit who pointed out that he had one less hour which meant Mark had one more hour, but since Mark had OK'd the watch system before and hadn't realised the discrepancy, we thought the less said the better! Anyway, Mia now enjoys taking a couple of one hour watches during the day, so that will free Mark up. This morning, I was glad to feel better as I have been joining Mia in the finding of our sealegs. That's not normal for me, but it seemed to be triggered by listening to SSB and writing down everyone's coordinates. Mark woke me early as he needed help to fix something. The autopilot. When I said the propeller was one of the only things we didn't have a spare of, the autopilot was probably the one of the others! Whit had written in one of his blogs (what am I talking about, his only blog since leaving the US!) that Mark had an uncanny ability to take thing apart and fix them in a way he would not be able to do. So, Whit and I crossed our fingers as Mark took apart the autopilot, hoping he would find something to fix. He did. Not something easy like a pin that needed replacing but the current to the electromagnet had shorted and needed replacing. Which Mark did. Three hours later, and Uncle Auto was back on the helm. Our most ardent of blog followers may remember we had a similar problem with Uncle Auto whilst crossing the Atlantic and you can rest assured that THIS time we counted the rudders and there were (thankfully) two. So, we continue to chug along with a fair wind and all is good aboard Pegasus of Jersey for now. Current position: 2.13.72S 94.14.50W