Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Day 10

103 miles for 1065 at 10 52N and 116 58W

Things look much better today. And we passed 1000 miles! WaHOO!! only 2000 more to go!!

Fish!! Trinda caught a smallish dorado on a little silver thing. Maybe 24 inches but 4 "larger than restaurant sized" fillets. We grilled it all and ate all but one serving. It was really good. Maybe there are more out there some where. Each day we go around the deck and pick up all the flying fish that missed the water. they vary , mostly 2 to 3 inches, but a few 6 to 10 inches. When Muffy left, I thought I was done cleaning the deck every day!! Ha!

After spending the night heaved-to and resting our minds as well as our bodies some, we had better luck fixing the auto pilot stuff. We had gotten up about 7:30 and spent til nearly 11 still heaved-to working on getting the auto pilot right. The ropes connecting the wind vane to the rudder had worn itself and some of the pulleys it went through so much that it had too much resistance to function.

About 11AM we started again. We set the jib poled out and ran down wind, wing-n-wing all day and through the night. We had to steer about 200 degrees instead of 245 but maybe we'll make it up later. Auto held up all day and night, with only one hiccup!. It is still 900 miles to that imaginary turning point where we will turn south to cross the equator and the ITCZ or the doldrums as people used to call it. So there is room to make up for the course changes.

We changed the tiller pilot back to the old one. I thought there might be some tuning difference, but it seemed the same. The remote control for the old one quit for good this time. We were able to completely change it out without turning off auto! The new remote control was labeled "pin compatible" which explains why it had a 4 pin connector and the old one had 6 pins. We had to change the wire and socket too.

We found the last bag of romaine hearts so we had a salad with the fish. The only veggies left are hicoma and a Mexican cactus-like veggie sorta like potato - hicoma cross. And then only canned stuff. We are out of oat meal for breakfast, just the little instant bags left. Lots of canned stuff though.

No temper flairs, generally a good happy day and made a few more miles.

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