JesseMartin.Net
10th August 1999
I AM moving well, doing 120-130 nautical miles a day. At this rate I should pass the Cape of Good Hope about Thursday, but the forecast shows there might be nasty weather around then so I have been advised to stick to 40 degrees south.
That is low enough from the shallow Agulhas that kicks up the waves and high enough to minimise strong winds.
Earlier this week some of my electrics stopped working. When I tried to put on a Bob Dylan CD and it wouldn't start, I decided enough was enough and got into repairing the loose connections.
I pulled out the switchboard and re-connected about eight or nine wires that looked as if they were on the way out, as well as the ones that had ceased to work.
I was glad when finally the speakers kicked into life "..owing in the wind".
Several days later, I was sticking my head out of the cabin when I heard a bird squawking.
I turned toward the bow and there was a big albatross struggling to free itself from the safety lines.
Panicked, he tumbled into the water and swam away, taking flight when he built up enough momentum.
He must have tried landing on the boat and slipped. It was a side of an albatross I had never seen before. Usually they are so graceful as they soar up and over the waves with their huge wingspan clipping the surface of the water. They definitely rule the air out here.
I was almost as impressed yesterday, when counting a new box of matches, to find there were exactly 50, just as it says on the packet.
Amazing! I feel sorry for the poor bloke whose job it is to count them, though.
Jessica, Lisa, Courtney and Steven from Taylors Lakes Primary School asked if I ever face a situation that I don't think I can fix.
There have been times when I've thought: "I wonder how this situation is going to turn out." Especially when I removed the furler from the forestay while in the tropics.
It got stuck and there were all these problems, but there wasn't much I could do about it except keep going.
If I were at home with other people around, then I may very well have just given up, claiming it was impossible. But out here you can't afford to do that.
However much you don't like a situation, you have to take it by the horns. It is probably one of the more important things I've learnt from the trip.
Last night the wind was blowing 15-20 knots and things were going well, until all of a sudden a horrible grinding noise started.
I flicked on the deck light and rushed outside. The noise was coming from the wind generator, so I rushed down below again and switched on the electric brake to stop it from rotating.
The noise slowed down as the spinning stopped, but it was too dark to see what the problem was and none of my torches was working. I had to wait until daylight to see what I was facing.
Thankfully it was only a couple of broken blades, possibly from an ugly collision with a bird, that could be replaced. I was concerned at the time because I rely on the huge amount of power it generates to operate all my electrics.
In the higher latitudes I could live without the solar panels, but not the wind generator. Best of all it is non-polluting.
In the US, clean wind energy is cheaper than coal. What fantastic news! Non-polluting cars that run on hydrogen are due for release in 2006. Come on politicians, this is the way of the future. The technology is there. What are we waiting for?