A beautiful day - to be on a beach

22:00UTC 03/12/07 16'45N 056'32W Wind Var1

It's been another quiet and windless day. The sun has shone brightly and the sky is full of small clouds, in fact it has been a quite gorgeous day if we weren't wanting to go sailing. To add insult to that particular injury, the forecast predicts that it will stay light until Wednesday night, then a 15-20 knot breeze will come in from the north east on Thursday, perfect for us if we weren't expecting to drop anchor at exactly that time.

The crew, sensing my frustration, managed to liven up the day considerably by blocking the loo. When the pump didn't work, it wasn't because the vandals had taken the handle, but because on of them had tried to dispose of a cleaning wipe (but it says flushable on the packet, skipper) Now the rule is, he who blocks it fixes it, so this crewmember soon had the whole pipework assembly in pieces, and we narrowed down the blockage to just before the pipe goes through the hull. This is not a bit that is easily reached from inside.

The obvious solution, really, was to take a wire or thin pipe and prod the blockage back up the pipe from the outside. Easily said, but that is 6 inches below the waterline. However, at least the water is warm so we stopped the boat, put out the bathing ladder and I took a swim. Despite a good ten minutes pushing a piece of wire into the outlet as the boat rocked and rolled above me, we weren't much further along. This needed more thought. In a moment of inspiration, I found the air pump for inflating the dinghy. Opening a porthole, we could operate the pump from inside the boat and the hose would reach to the outlet. Swimming again, I held the hose in the toilet outlet whilst pressure was applied. It worked! A resolutely intact cleaning wipe, plus an amount of unpleasant debris, popped back out of the pipe. Fortunately, the crew weren't looking down said pipe at the time, although that might have been a deserving reward for those who had blocked it in the first place.....

That done, we put the engine back on, set the autopilot, cleaned up and had a much needed beer.

This evening, nature treated us to a sunset of indescribable beauty. The range and intensity of colour, changing every minute, defies words and I suspect even the pictures will not do it justice. A real treat and something unique to voyages like this. The photographers were in seventh heaven.

We made 106 miles yesterday, and expect to do about the same today. We motor for about 80 miles then have quiet time and let the boat ghost along at 2-3 knots at best. Less than 300 miles to Antigua.

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