Beltana II - Spinnaker day

The spinnaker went up on Beltana II today – Day Nine.
We are totally bored of the windless sea, so when 6-7 knots blew in from the right direction, that was our solution – launch the spinnaker for the first time in 8 years!! She went up really well, classic wine glass but we pulled that out OK. She is a big sail. Blue on the corners, then pink, then orange, then a white starry centre bit,,,guess you have to see it. Not really enough wind for her – rigged a light special sheet as well to take the weight off the clew. Played for about one hour but then the breeze dies again so she had to come down.

Motored on then and intersected two other ARC boats going in a different direction – they are heading west and a little north, we are heading south to find the trade winds. Gave the French boat a big wave and said hello and off we went. Time for an afternoon swim. The crew worked pretty hard today, we sanded and varnished the washboards, flag pole, drink holders and compass bass and parts of the hatch area. John V C also found and bypassed a faulty isolation switch on the autopilot which could be why this has been tripping off lately.

Just on dusk Johnny caught a beautiful tuna – yum fresh sashimi and the fillets are huge – tomorrow’s lunch. Saw another whale today and lots of flying fish too. We also get frigate birds out here = so far from land now. Lunch today was a medley of leftovers. Lasagne for dinner tonight – a real great dish from the O’Grady school of good cooking. The cheeses the guys found in as Palmas are also terrific.
Bye for now – got to find the wind – motoring for a bit, we are more than one third of the way across, but only used one sixth of our fuel so far before touching the 160 litres of reserve we carry in the forepeak, so we will burn a bit tonight. – Jono