News Archive
21 May 2006
The wonders of fresh water.
Click on this link to hear Adrian's latest audio interview with Steve Sleight for Cowes Online: http://www.cowes.co.uk/cb/zone
Three full days out of Honolulu and I am beginning to pick up the rhythms of the sea once again. My pulse is beating to Barrabas's unique beat. Despite her injuries, she is still feisty and seems impatient that I keep her sails shortened. Progress so far is good in the steady trade winds with our average daily mileage coming in at over 120 and that's sailing with only a deep reefed headsail. Although the stopover was 9 days, I did not get a lot of sleep and now with the boat shipshape and the weather warm and dry, I am catching up on sleep. However, I will be in or close to shipping lanes all the way to the antipodal point at 24.11 North 143.22 East 3,000 miles west of my current position so the hours of darkness bring danger. My habit is to make an "All Ships" call on the VHF every couple of hours giving my position to any vessels in the vicinity.
One of my tasks in Honolulu was to flush the water tanks. I was expecting a bacterial soup to gush out, but the tanks were surprisingly clean with only a small quantity of foul water. Now with 400 litres of fresh water aboard such simple conveniences as filling the kettle from a tap, washing up in fresh water, rinsing my hands without the need for decanting water from a jerry can to a jug makes a huge difference. I plan to now use the watermaker to feed directly into the tanks to generate flow and water turnover to keep it fresh. It is also a great psychological comfort to know that I have 200 days rations of water onboard should the watermaker fail (thankfully unlikely given its outstanding performance to date!)