Day 3, the day the music died
25 May 2021 | 03 21.347'N:80 21.243'W, At sea to Nuku Hiva
NC
25th May
03 21.347 N
80 21.243 W
Weather; muggy, overcast and humid with rain showers, wind 0-5 knots, waves1 - 2 metre swell with short interval Ð yuk!
Thank goodness that day three is over and done with, the terrific threes turned out to be tiring and troublesome. Shortly after I posted the blog yesterday we finally saw a bit of sunshine coming up behind us, of course on all the other three sides the sky was full of dark and threatening clouds. For the majority of the day though we had flat clam waters and next to no wind to push us along which meant that we had the engine running for 21 hours and were only managing a measly 4.5 knots at best. By the time the 24hours were up we had only covered 112 NM and we are not actually on course for the Galapagos way point as yet, we need the wind to turn a bit and for us to head out away from the land mass. It's a frustrating passage at the best of times and this certainly can't be counted as the best, nothing for it but too keep plugging away and hoping that we find those elusive winds soon. There was nothing on the water surrounding us for the entire 24 hours, just us, water and sk
y. I decided to dig out my iPod and listen to some music to while away a few hours, as I hadn't charged it for the last couple of months it was as flat as a tack and took a while to charge up which in itself was a worry as it showed a totally blank screen for ages but eventually it came good and all the music appeared so I dug out the ear buds and began playing a couple of tracks and there it stopped and wouldn't play anything else. I made the monumental mistake of telling Gerry who promptly said "let me have a look". I stupidly handed it over and he suggested that he put it back on charge along with the noise cancelling ear buds and I let him take it below to plug in. a short while later he handed it back to me as it was supposedly fully charged, I switched it on and was devastated to find no music at all on it. Somewhere in the less than 26feet distance from the cockpit to the salon Gerry had somehow managed to press buttons and reset the whole thing to factory settings wh
ich wipes the entire memory of everything that I had downloaded Ð 18,000 songs/ bits of music deleted in one simple move! I was beyond cross as the only way I can reload them is from the library on the home computer in Tasmania when I have a decent internet connection. I know I could download my library to this laptop but to do that I need internet and that's at least 3 weeks away in Nuku Hiva, if we can even get internet then! I had broken the cardinal rule and let Gerry touch my iPod! The only good thing out of this is that he also has his iPod on board, which we use in the music system and he has the same music library on it as was on mine Ð I know this for a fact as I was the one who downloaded the library to his iPod, so we aren't totally bereft of music, it's just harder to get at on an individual basis. Is he lucky to still be alive? I'll let you decide and wonder if in fact he is.
At some point Gerry had put the fishing stick out, more as a joke than any hope of catching anything but shortly after midday Gerry had gone below for something and I was sitting watching the water and there was this funny hissing noise that took me a while to identify as the line spooling out (its such a rare thing to hear). Any way it stopped and I thought whatever had snagged the line was gone but I yelled for Gerry to come up and see, he did the reeling in and was convinced there was nothing on the line but to our surprise we reeled in a small yellow finned tuna, it was a baby and would have been a snack between meals so we took a photo and released it back for another day. We had eaten fish last night so weren't desperate for a fish dinner. That would be our entire catch for the day. Then just before I put the dinner on to cook we were entertained by a bird that appeared out of nowhere, circled our boat half a dozen times and then tried to land on the rail of the pulpit,
it eventually succeeded and made itself at home preening and cleaning its wings whilst precariously balancing on the rail which was bouncing up and down in time with the waves. We were even more surprised to see it tuck its head under its wing and go to sleep, still balancing on the rail, we had a hitchhiker. It remained there until about 8am this morning when it finally took off after 3 false starts to go fishing for its breakfast.in the last couple of hours it has returned to the boat several times and executed perfect landings on the pulpit rail each time Ð it's showing off now! we have no doubt that the area around the anchor will be covered in bird crap when we eventually get to go out on deck and see. After yesterday's brief show of sun we were hopeful that today would follow on in the same line, not a chance, as dawn broke the sky was as cloud covered and grey as it has been every other day so far, the wind is still missing in action, the swell is bearable but the g
oing is slower than snail's pace. We have changed tack to head off towards the Galapagos and the hope of picking up the wind along the way as we get further away from the land mass but at the moment it's just wishful thinking as the rain trickles down and we continue to motor sail at a maximum of 4 knots. I was just down below and Gerry shouted out that there was a container ship behind us, I thought he was joking but sure enough for the first time in a couple of days we weren't the only ones in this patch of water, of course it is moving much faster than we are so is pretty much out of site as I type. So it looks like today will be another slow day for us but at least we are heading somewhere.