Since there was no wind all day yesterday I decided to have a look at the thing that has been bugging me most since I left, namely the depth sounder. Out here the ocean is so deep that my feeble little ping probably doesn’t even reach the bottom, let alone get back up again, so the display just shows a sad little three dashes. It’s also a terrible waste of electricity, something which is in short supply at the moment, so I want to be able to switch it off independently of the other instruments.
However they are all networked, and if I switch off the depth sounder then all the others seem to get lost and confused without it and beep and flash meaningless error messages and generally make a nuisance of themselves until I turn it back on again. So once again I spent the afternoon dismantling half the interior of the boat to get to the wiring. I suppose really I should just leave it all in bits as I’m forever having to redo it, but as an optimist I keep telling myself that this will be the last time.
Three hours later I finally seemed to have made some sense of the wiring and was able to shut the depth sounder off without affecting the other instruments. I also managed to get the main autopilot (Alan) properly integrated with everything else, along with his backup, Darren, so named after the sullen youths in Burberry baseball caps who ride side-saddle in white Transit vans waiting forlornly to get a chance at driving.
Actually I will miss the depth sounder for one thing. Every now and then it would suddenly start showing a reading, maybe around ten metres, gradually rising and falling. Sometimes it went as low as four and I’d look around nervously to see if I was about to founder on some uncharted reef, but it never happened and after a little while the display went back to the usual three dashes. I wonder whether this was some deep-sea creature coming up to have a look at my bottom? I guess I’ll never know.
After supper I motored for an hour as usual to charge the batteries, and when I switched the engine off I was delighted to feel a gentle breeze from the south-east. It was just enough to sail gently but steadily in the right direction and lasted all night, gradually increasing and coming round to the west by midday today. We’re now at a latitude of 40 degrees north, so could this finally be the mythical westerly trade wind I’ve been hoping for? It’s certainly been blowing steadily all day so we’re making good progress and La Rochelle is now a mere 2,370 miles away.
There are two problems with sailing dead downwind. First, the boat tends to roll a fair bit but there’s nothing to be done about that so I just live with it, staggering around the cabin as though I’ve been at the cooking sherry again. Secondly and perhaps more annoyingly the wind generator is once again idle as the apparent wind is not enough to spin the blades. It needs about 10 knots to produce any power, and since we’re sailing downwind at 6 knots in about 12-14 knots of true wind there’s only actually 6-8 knots of wind hitting the turbine which is not quite enough. Never mind, who needs lights anyway when there are so many stars at night?
Speaking of the stars, yesterday was a sad day as I heard that my maternal grandmother passed away in her sleep on Friday night. It was not altogther unexpected as she was 91 and although still reasonably active and happy she was getting a little tired, and this was the way she always said she wanted to go. I last saw her just before I left England in March and spoke to her several times since. She always sounded cheerful and eager to hear about my latest adventures so it’s a shame I didn’t make it back home in time to see her again.
I spent several years living with my grandparents as a teenager, and it was my grandfather who taught me to sail. My grandmother used to accompany him on his regular cross-Channel trips and since she suffered from sea-sickness she always ended up steering in an attempt to overcome it, while my grandfather dozed down below. Funnily enough she never really took to sailing.
They were married for 56 years and after ten years apart they are now hopefully together again, so I looked up at the beautiful starlit sky last night and toasted their reunion with an extra glass of red wine. I know, any excuse, but she deserved it as she was a wonderful person who had a huge influence on me and will always have a special place in my heart.