Monday, May 2, 2016

Day Six: 05-Apr-2016

Day 6: 05-Apr-2016 Barra, Mexico to Marquesas Tuesday

Today presented itself with another challenge and a change up to the meal plan. The Admiral went down to prepare a special breakfast - Susan and Betty-Ann’s famous baked apple pancake with breakfast sausage and St. Joe’s Maple Syrup. The pancake was ready to go into the oven but I could not get the oven to stay lit. David tried with no luck. We think it might be the thermal couple. Let’s hope not as we do not have a spare and lots of my special treats involve a working oven.

But back to the issue at hand. What to I do with this pancake concoction? I remembered that Susan used to make a pineapple upside down cake at her B&B in Belize. She cooked it in her frying pan on the stove top. Could this work for my pancake? So I poured the batter into the deep sided frying pan, covered it with tin foil and put it on a medium low flame. Voila - in 25 minutes it had transformed into a puffy apple pancake and breakfast was saved. 



1130:
 12 plus dolphins were sighted on our port side and came over to play in our bow wake.

1200 Noon Position  11* 20’ N 108* 57’W
     Weather: mainly sunny with low scattered clouds
     Seas are 6 feet and Winds are 15 knots ENE
     Speed is 6.5 knots Course 200-210
     Distance Travelled in past 24 hours: 142 nm
     Total Distance Travelled to Date: 716 nm
     Average Speed Since Leaving Barra: Just under 5 knots!!!

Another issue arose in the afternoon. The head started spitting back at you when you tried to pump it dry. Then it stopped pumping altogether. We had this issue before - just prior to arriving in Santa Barbara, California. The culprit was a plug of toilet paper in the head. Since that time we have not been putting any toilet paper in the head. We had forgot to tell Armon or simply made the assumption that he knew this seeings as no one in Mexico puts toilet paper in the head. Plus Armon has a boat. Now the last seven years of my career was practicing the “No Blame” quality management philosophy - so no need to jump to conclusions and no need to lay any blame. Good thing as this did not end up being the problem. It ended up being the Joker valve - no pun intended. So that would be tomorrows project.

But things tend to happen in threes. Why is that? We were running with the Auto Pilot and quite often hitting 7 knots. I guess this is about the outer limits for our CSI _ too much torque and it gave way. We heard the system grind a couple of times and the belt start to slip. David decided to disengage it and switch to the Wind Vane Monitor. No damage as we caught it in time.

Just a day of sailing - I do not remember ever being able to sail for days on end! And another sunset to end our day.


Not all were spectacular but signified another day less to go!

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