Diversity

Since my last entry, it's been everything. Broad reaching under genoa
and main, wing on wing, gennaker, back to wing on wing, back to
gennaker, and finally in the late hour of this morning, the dreaded
Yanmar sail. In theory, we could go all the way to Luanda motoring, we
have enough fuel for that, but would rather sail. All we need is 10
knots of wind or more and we are assured to do more than 5 knots. Still
not enough to make Luanda on Saturday. I sent a report announcing
Saturday 18:00, but this was wishful thinking. In fact, at 5 knots, it
was in fact Sunday, not Saturday at 18:00. Now that we are motoring and
on a direct route to Luanda, at 5.5 knots, we should arrive late
afternoon Saturday. In that case, we might slow down in order to arrive
with daylight.
The hand of Olivier continues to heal and looks good. He can now help
with manoeuvrings, but has to avoid contact with water, especially sea
water.
Since we left Saldanha, our average consumption of water stands at 2.11
US Gallons per day for the both of us. To minimize use of fresh water, I
have starting heating up seawater to do the dishes and this way we only
need a quick rinse in fresh water that can be reused twice. I think this
is saving approximately one gallon per day.
I have also drastically reduced the use of the boat computer, switching
it on for emails, postings on the blog, taking grib files, all that in
two sessions per day, and to do the noon position. Otherwise, we leave
it off. As a result, we consume a lot less electricity, and even with an
overcast sky sometimes, we only ran the electric diesel generator for 2
hours since we left. And now that we are motoring, charging the
batteries through a 100 amps alternator, we won't use the genset until
after we leave Luanda for Cayenne.
The only item that might be in short supply are chocolate chip cookies
and bread. But we have rusks. And Olivier mistakenly took a box wine of
white wine that he thought was red wine. This also will have to wait for
Luanda, even if it is expensive.