El Mundo - 10/12 - Good Day for Fresh Water and Spinnaker

It's been a nice day with consistent wind, exceptfor an hour around midnight when it became light and a small squall camethrough. The log is 2660, so just shy of 180 miles in the last 24hours and about 175 miles to run.....looking good for a morning arrival inRodney Bay. It was a good day...foundthe fresh water leak first thing in the morning, it was a faulty high pressurerelease valve on the hot water tank, cunningly hidden by an overly long drainagepipe that exited into an obscure part of the bilge. Removed the offending valve,soaked it in vinegar for an hour to clear any calcification (scarily effective),lubed it with PTFE and refitted it successfully. Even though it was a small flowof water, we lost 500 litres of fresh water but the water maker produces about150 litres. read more...

El Mundo - 09/12 - Relationships All At Sea

We have packed the kite ready to hoist if we getany light airs, either to use or just to be able to refurl on the torsion cable.Also, we have a small fresh water leak into the bilge and spent a couple ofhours trying to trace it yesterday afternooon, without success but finallylocated it first thing this morning....a faulty high pressure release valve onthe hot water tank. So now trying to clean it and then to replace the 500 litresof water that disappeared from our fresh water tank overnight. Caught one more Dorado (14th) on the remainingrod yesterday but the weed is still bad so it was good that wecaught anything at all.Dinner was fillet steak in a green peppercornsource with french fries and a tomato salad. This is the last of the salad butplenty of apples, oranges,. read more...

El Mundo - 08/12 - Well that was quite a day....and night...

We're all a bit tired this morning...not overlysurprising though. The wind has been good all day and we swiotched betweengoose-winged and reaching as the wind shifted, which seems to the pattern. Wedid 175 miles in the last 24 hours and we are now 500 miles from StLucia. The fishing took on a new intensity, as there is alot of weed about and the lines required clearing repeatedly. We caught a smalltuna, then a reasonable sized Dorado, which changed our catering plans and wedined on Dorado fillets cooked with ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, lime andchives, accompanied by Lyonaise potatoes. However, the big catch of the day wasreeled in by Bob....and it was quite a fight. We brought in a beautiful Marlin,close enough to cut the line right by the lure to set him free again. In thefinal. read more...

El Mundo - 07/12 - Zig-zagging Across the Ocean

We've covered 175 miles in the last 24 hours, witha good wind all day and night, alternating between goose-winged and reaching asthe wind changes.....so a bit of a zig-zag course. A bit more action on the fishing front too...lost 2 fish andfound the hooks to have deteriorated, so replaced them. Then caught a largeDorado....maybe 8-10kg, which we let go as we would have been eating it for aweek! Anyway....it was Saturday curry nightand Amanda produced quite a spicy version of her Thai Green Curry. We baked agrain and seed bread loaf for the morning too.Our masthead tricolour bulb has blown (notsomething you really want to replace at sea!), so went to turn on the main Navlights but only the stern light came on. It would seem that the jolt of thespinnaker issue caused both. read more...

El Mundo - 06/12 - Spinnaker was up....briefly

Wind during the day pretty steady and, as it veeredslightly, we set the kite during late morning and were making 9 knots.... verynice. We had just finished a gespachio soup lunch when there was a loud bang asthe end of the bowsprit detached itself. We managed to drop the sail on deck.The pullpit had been bent a bit with the vertical force (the only thing holdingthe spinnaker was a safety strop), so our guardrails are a bit slack. We bent itback a bit but some further remedial work will be required at the other end. Thebowsprit has been rerigged but we now need to wait for some very light airsto reraise the kite to try and furl it again (still hoping we'll need it for thefinal leg into St Lucia). The crew areall in good spirits and just took it in their stride...some great. read more...