Footnotes from Water Music

The day began with another two lost fishes off the lines making a total of 4! Yesterday evening we successfully joined in the Ocean Cruising Club Pacific crossing net on the SSB. This is being run by our Canadian friend Norm on Dream Catcher so it was great to have a chat and compare positions (they are following the same course and at approximately the same speed but left slightly after us), the Norwegian boat Raffen is also doing a very similar route and probably catching us up but they don't have a SSB radio and we have so far been unable to contact them on the VHF or see them on the AIS. Although Gabrielle has been very active in the forward heads with her environmentally disposable anti-septic wipes it is Brian who wins the prize for lavatory maintenance by clearing out the pump and so it now runs like a dream. Brian and Stephen's big task for the day is the maintenance and changing of the filters in the water maker. Stephen has been trying to display his knowledge of Facilities Management by using acronyms that we know he doesnt understand. We think he is only using language like that to intimidate us - rather akin to Miss Jean Brodie's prime and the use of quarter hours. His favourite acronym seems to be RTF, which he has used to describe his policy on changing filters on the water maker. He claims that means Run To Failure. We make no comment.

For the last couple of hours we have been anxiously awaiting for the re-running of this hoping that it has been successfully reassembled. Other than this a pretty quiet day some jumping fish spotted (probably small tuna - sadly not on the line), and a lot of flying fish sparkling in the sunshine.

At 1630 local time, we reached a somewhat arbitrary way point that the skipper had inserted to take us South of the light winds running to West of Galapagos and we have now born away from the wind by 30 degrees to make a direct course for the Marquessas. Unfortunately, for Gabrielle at least, the wind has followed us round and so no spinnaker. We are still at an awkward angle making it very difficult to cook - beef stew is under way.

However, the Water Maker seems to be working - so we may even have a shower!