Furlers & Freezers

We made 88 miles towards Ponce yesterday with 128 miles run. By lunch time the weather had become fairly pleasant and we were back to 1 reef in the main and full genoa and the wind had veered to the S of West so we were pointing roughly in the right direction. Late in the afternoon I noticed that the sheath of the rope which furls the genoa had parted. The forecast was for falling winds  until arrival but I wasn’t comfortable leaving it like that so furled the sail and used a spare halyard as a replacement. The line is 12mm but seemingly too big for the furler as I had to point the end of the rope in order to get it through the hole in the drum, I will have to see if I can get some 10mm line in Puerto Rico, something else for the shopping list. I have also just emailed a battery company that Graham had googled for me to see what they have on offer.

Looking at the installation it appears that two batteries are ok and 2 are not but i will replace them all.

The hour or so i was replacing the furling line lost us some distance and windwardness but, all being well we should berth tomorrow.

I had some mergez sausages with beer for sundowner, very good, and frying my reheated ‘jock’s lazy, fishy, tomatoey penne pasta’ in the fat improved that too.

Doing my battery charging last night it seemed that the batteries had cheered up  because they were lasting longer between charges, but this morning the freezer is off and not coming on so that explains the batteries and adds another thing to the list to look at once settled. Disappointing as its barely a month old. Boats!

We are half way across the stretch of water between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico so it’s quite rummelly and the wind is back to 20 knots. As the wind was due to die i had stayed on the stbd tack, so when it died i could just motor in the right direction but as an island, Isla Mona, got in the way and the wind seems strong enough, I am now on port getting back to the line where i should be able to tack and make Ponce, the down side to this is that I am almost making no headway towards ponce on this tack.

Oh well time for a cup of tea.

Slainte

Jock and Yemaya