[Making plans for South American landing: We should] check hotels at both Pirapolis and Punta del Este [Uruguay] (I could go to either) and activities there. Maybe you guys would rather hang out there than in Buenos Aires. ....

About half way through Naomi Klein's book; seriously depressing.

After this email I'll give the watermaker another shot but I'm grasping for air now. I'd like to know why the fucking thing doesn't work but everything inside seems normal which is bad because it makes me think that it must be a small thing caught somewhere and thus that I can fix it, and every time time I start it, since even when it works, the water takes a while to come out, I look with increasing angst at the end of that little hose where the water is supposed to come out, and hope gradually evaporates (bad pun intended)......

The sailing has been good the last 24hrs: about 5.5 kts average and in pretty much the right direction. Janneke took a reef last night without any supervision at all (I was actually on the radio for the roll call at that time) and she did a perfect job. By now she has mastered most of the sail maneuvers, which is good. We haven't set up the whisker poles yet so that's the last set of maneuvers she has to learn. We mighty do that later today. It's good to have her aboard and we have long conversations and play cards! You see I'm sure you'd like this life on passage now....

I washed myself this morning and put clean clothes on (last batch lasted about 10 days. Since it was sunny early, I entertained the thought of washing my self in the cockpit with a bucket, but a short stay out there convinced me quickly that it would be a tad to tonic for my taste. So I took a more civilized sponge bath in the head with heated up salt water in the small red basin. Not bad at all actually. And after toweling, the salt was all gone and the clean clothes felt great. Talking about salt water, I have found out that if I wipe the dishes with a dishtowel after a salt water rinse, there is no residual salty taste, which saves a bit of water as compared to the fresh water rinse I used to do for bowls, cups and glasses. My guess is that we have about 320l of water including our jerrycans (120l) which would give us about 10 liters per day up to the Falklands; and that is more than twice what we use. And we would have the possibility of stopping at Puerto Williams (just after the Horn, in the Beagle channel) if we were desperate. So I'm not worried about dying of thirst but it is definitely a hardship: no rinsing dishes, no wiping salty surface with fresh water, no fresh water washing , no laundry, noodles cooked in as little water as possible etc.....

The water temp has steadily been dropping and is now at 17C (it was at 24 C in NZ). The air is still warm at about 20C but being outside is a little cold because of the humidity and the wind....
[so to]the watermaker again...