Indian Ocean Day 6 - 14/10/17

The days roll by, and here I am again, tumbling out of my bunk at 03:00 to relieve Mark on watch, watching the moon rise astern lighting the sea brightly beneath the dark clouds. I feel rather exhausted and sleepy so I boil the kettle and make a strong coffee which I drink while munching a handful of trail-mix.

My phone alarm is set to remind me to write the log every hour. So I climb down to the cabin and at the chart table, brace myself against the motion the boat, and reach for the Log Book.  I note latitude, longitude, heading, course over the ground (COG), speed, speed over the ground (SOG), distance travelled, wind speed and direction, current speed and direction, barometric pressure, cloud coverage, general weather condition, water used, time of switching generator on/off and water-maker on/off plus a new column recording the comforting green or alarming red lights monitoring current leakage to the hull. Then in the Electrical Log I note hourly battery status; voltage, current draw (amps), amp hours used, and decided whether the generator needs to be started to recharge the batteries.

Still at the Chart table,  I reach up and pull down the Food Diary and note the menus served for lunch and supper. Next the Equipment Log comes down and I review the outstanding technical problems, add any new ones to the list, and then fill in any detailed observations and solution on the page reserved for each item. My Medical Log records any crew ailments and drugs dispensed.

Then I try to write my Blog before answering any emails, (keeping in touch with family and friends is such a great thing to be able to do at sea), contacting people for help with technical issues, or arranging to meet in the next port.

Looking ahead I set the laptop off to download the latest weather forecast, through the Iridium satellite phone network,  and then look at the red (windy), green (less windy) or blue (calm) coloured wind fields and the lines of dots suggesting recommended weather routes from the four weather forecast types received. Usually the forecasts differ quite significantly and the four suggested routes head off in different directions, so I ignore them and keep our course direct to our destination.

However for the last two days all forecasts agree that the high pressure to the south will push a big arc of strong wind northwards and the weather routes all concur to head slightly north of our course to make the best of the wind angles. So if you look at the website and the "Where in the World is Tin Tin?" link, the map should now show us heading due west. The significant wave height is forecast to rise to 5 metres, which means that once every three hours there is a statistical likelihood of encountering a wave almost twice that height - something that is quite a threat to us if not handled carefully.

Now at lunch time, the wind has freshened but not from the East as predicted, but from the South, so there is a low pressure out there astern of us squeezing the isobars which may add some extra excitement!

Well, having bored you to tears with the fundamentals of my day, I must now get out my paper journal, add some entries and sketch a little dead squid which somehow flew aboard with all the tiny flying fish last night. Then it's my turn to cook supper, and with a freezer full of fish I should probably use that again!