Monday, December 03, 2012

We are on our way south again, as we speak we are approaching Port Elizabeth, which is almost at the bottom of Africa.  We had a great passage here except for the last day.  We left Durban and managed to catch the Agulhas current.  Wow,  did we ever go, I have a picture on my phone and on the camera of us doing over 11 knots.  We were making over 7 knots of hull speed and then a 4 knot current made us zoom along.  We had a 60 hour weather window and we were approaching East London with 18 hours left in the window.  It was only another 125 to Port Elizabeth so  I urged Barry to continue.  A guy on the Peri Peri radio net said that it wouldn't be too bad and that we should go for it.  That seemed to change Barry's mind and he agreed to continue.  Of course, we lost the current and were making a measly 7 knots so it took a lot longer to get here than I anticipated.  You guessed it the weather changed, the winds came on our nose and at the moment we are motoring almost full speed into the wind and waves making only 3 knots.   We are bouncing around, but it is not too bad, but Barry is extremely angry with me. There has been lots of shouting and recriminations  on both sides and it is not fun to be on board at the moment.
Last night in the middle of the night we were motor sailing, we changed tacks and could have sailed but used the motor to keep us higher into the wind.=  The raw water intake was not getting enough water because of the angle of our heel and the motor overheated.  The high temperature alarm went off causing much consternation because we did not know the cause at first.  The alarm kept ringing for 15 minutes until Barry disconnected it.  This of course added to his misery!!
I guess I should just let him make his conservative judgments about the weather and be happy with what he wants, I am sure that would lead to a happier boat,  We are not unsafe at the moment, just a tad  uncomfortable, we should be in port in 5 hours, all remaining as it is.
On a happier note we tested the Christmas cake and it is yummy if slightly underdone due to a faulty stove that Barry's thinks is fine.  The oven refuses to remain lit and I have to put a spoon between the knob and the grab bar that goes across in front of it for it to remain lit.  It took over 5 hours to ž cook the cake because the oven kept going out.  It tastes really yummy though!!!