24 March 2010
I awoke to the sight of colourful balloons flying gaily from Voyageur's cockpit mizzen mast. The reason.... it is my birthday today. All morning Aeolus teased us mercilessly with fluctuating wind speeds and sudden erratic changes of direction. But during an afternoon nap he spirited one from right under my very nose. It would be the red one, bold letters with "BIRTHDAY" on it. This childish prank of his must have appealed to him for he settled down and before long we were flying along at a fine rate ok knots towards our first island paradise. Birthday wishes came over on the net from Ocean Jasper, Lady Lisa, Eowyn and Ronja, whose crew sang Happy Birthday in Norwegian followed by a musical rendition from the wandering mistrals duo, Vilde and Patrik.
We have been extraordinarily lucky. First we escape the effects of the tsunami in Academy Bay, Galapagos. Now the weld which David made to our accumulator tank although starting to ooze once more has held almost all the length of this trip, but it was only temporary after all. The watermaker has started to play up again, the switch tripping out after fifteen to twenty minutes. The fault which we thought resolved in French Martinique in the Caribbean has returned. With 700 litres in our water tank and just 250nm to go we are not at risk of going thirsty or without showers. How lucky that these issues did not rear their ugly heads earlier on in the passage. The accumulator tank we are fairly confident we can get replaced in Tahiti, at the very least it could be welded and we are hopeful that there may be someone in Tahiti who can look at our watermaker. They say in life that you make your own luck but I am convinced our Turkish third eye attached still to Voyageur's bow pulpit has something to do with it.....
Susan Mackay