N37:09:879 W42:45:600
Boat miles:- 1115.6
Miles to go:- 676.4
A quiet and light winds night. Well some mornings
are just magical and the clarity this morning was stunning - no haze, no rain,
no cloud, just the far horizon and we could see for miles and miles. And there
was no-one else out here we could see, though there may be some folks just over
the horizon. Indeed we know Aditi, an ARC 2013 boat, are some 200 miles
ahead of us and should be in Horta early next week.This view of the horizon is a
very stark contrast to the closed in and very dark nights we had during the two
recent storms!
There are lots of things to be viewed closely, but
equally on a clear day or night there are lots of things best viewed from afar -
lightning, squalls, cumulonimbus, big commercial ships of which we are very wary
of course, but also moon rises, and sets, sunrises and sunsets and the colours
on the sea created by these events. Wonderful. So a day of far horizon's for the
time being, but there are some showers, squalls and big winds forecast for
Monday - we'll be well reefed down this time a little more prepared for these
atlantic squalls.
Gremlins! Yes the dreaded word, at least not quite
as feared as cockroaches, the gremlins have arrived somehow over the past
day or so. The Inverter, working all the way to
Bermuda, has given up the ghost. The wind indicator is not providing anything
like an accurate view - it can't be 3.6kts all the time - the masthead unit was
replaced last year in Trinidad, and a repeater unit that provides Course over
Ground - useful to confirm where you think you are going, has given up as
well. In addition we suspect Gremlins are at work with the GPS system - the one
Uncle Sam runs - on several occasions over the past few days the GPS no longer
displays lattitude and longitude. On both the fixed and handheld GPS units there
is no sign of the satellites, though we know they are up there. After about 10
minutes or so normal service is resumed. All the GPS units say is that there is
poor satellite reception. We don't necessarily think it us (but of course it
could be) given both fixed and handheld behave the same way, but it could just
be that this is an area of ocean not best covered. This would seem strange
however given this is the route across the atlantic for yachts coming from the Caribbean, US, Canada and Bermuda etc. All
very strange. Any bright ideas most welcome. And if anyone has a matter
transporter (Scottie are you there?) can they beam the Gremlins off the boat -
they've not been fed as far as we know!
More in due course......nice winds at the moment
but can't lay a direct course so are gybing across the rum line every couple of
hourse to make some head way and not disappear to far away from where we
want to be.
Andrew & Susan
S/V
Andromeda