Feb 22, 2005 – 2100hrs UTC

Sitrep: 2100hrs 22 Feb 2005 UTC 48’10”S 118’16”W Map Ref 76 4362nm

The lonely sea and the sky…To misquote Douglas Adams, here we are, two ape descended primitive organic life forms (and some highly advanced boot feralsInteresting biological colonies that grow and fester in seaboots. There are left foot ferals and right foot ferals and occasionally they get to cross breed and create fierce hybrids.Interesting biological colonies that grow and fester in seaboots. There are left foot feralsInteresting biological colonies that grow and fester in seaboots. There are left foot ferals and right foot ferals and occasionally they get to cross breed and create fierce hybrids. and right foot feralsInteresting biological colonies that grow and fester in seaboots. There are left foot ferals and right foot ferals and occasionally they get to cross breed and create fierce hybrids. and occasionally they get to cross breed and create fierce hybrids.) protected by a fibreglass shell travelling across the vast expanses of intercontinental ocean. Not for us the infinite improbability drive in the Heart of Gold – we must go with Berrimilla’s dacron laminar flow engine and flex and bend with the forces that exist out here – using as much of them as we can and accommodating the rest. I’ve been reading stories of storm and shipwreck around the Horn all my life and I’ve re-read a lot of it in preparation for this journey. We have some horror stories in the boat with us too- light reading foe those idle moments – and the tendency is to trepidate a lot about what may be in store for us and to allow the thought of the wave out there that is just too big for our resilience and flexibility to cope with to smother the knowledge that such waves are rare and – mostly – survivable and that most of what we are likely to meet in the next couple of weeks is quite manageable and, indeed, exhilarating. Probably extremely uncomfortable at times but nothing we haven’t seen before.

And as we get towards the 36k half way mark of this metaphorical marathon to the Horn, it is clear that our resources will last the distance, although we will need to manage power and diesel very carefully. The solar panel is in the cockpit, face to the lighter part of the cloud cover as I write, and it is contributing about 2 amps. Whoopee. We have water, Medical Supplies in the icebox and food and, so far, no big threats to the boat or her gear. Berri seems to be handling it very well – a couple of minor bumps and noises that I could do without, but nothing scary. However, the block is as yet uncarved.

As for the weather, difficult to predict at this stage. Without the generator, I have decided not to try and get weather faxes as they take 10 – 15 minutes to come in over the HFHigh Frequency – usually refers to HF radio which is long range digital radio that Berrimilla used to send all but a few of the logs on both circumnavigations. The radio was connected via a Pactor 3 digital modem to Alex’s laptop and used the Sailmail software application called Airmail to send emails and pull in emails, weather and GRIB files. Airmail also supports Iridium satellite telephone messaging and Alex used this as backup when the HF radio died approaching England. radio and that’s a huge drain on the battery.  We will rely on gribWeather files. Graphics in Binary file: GRIB files associate a specific weather datum (eg wind velocity or atmospheric pressure) with a geographic position. Because the resulting file is a collection of these points they are extremely small and so ideal over slow links such as sailmail. weather through sailmailSailmail is the system that Berrimilla uses for email communication. It is a non-profit association of yacht owners operating a network of private coast stations in the maritime Mobile Radio Service. and the EGC messages on satcomC and any advice that we can get. Most of this depends on the laptop.  If I lose the use of it, we will have to try to get weather info over the radio from the locals atCape Hornor just go with whatever weather we experience. The distance – about 1899 miles and descending –  is now a mentally manageable chunk – threeHobarts, or even 1999Hobartand return during which we logged more than 1500 miles in some awful weather.

That all seems very MarvinThe manically depressed robot with a “brain the size of a planet” from HHGTTGThe Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams; essential reading for those trying to understand these logs. You may be none the wiser once you’ve read it, but at least you’ll have tried. More here and EeyoreThe lugubrious donkey in AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.. ‘A mind the size of a planet and you ask me to count your beer bottles? That’s just what would happen.’

Does anyone out there have experience using the TelstraThe Telstra Corporation is an Australian Telecommunications Company dominant in the area of land lines, mobile phones and Broadband, amongst other services satellite phone system? I can always get a call through toAustralia, but have failed every time I have tried to talk to theUK.  That’s about 50 failed attempts over the last week since the generator started to pack up and I have wanted to talk to the manufacturers. I just get the message ‘Call fail system busy’. It is an old Kyocera handset with an external aerial but that ought not make any difference for voice comms – it just doesn’t do data.  Very very frustrating and certainly not worth the access charge I pay to TelstraThe Telstra Corporation is an Australian Telecommunications Company dominant in the area of land lines, mobile phones and Broadband, amongst other services unless it improves.