From: OmanTri
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 05:36:26 -0000
To: update
Subject: rain showers in the tropics

It’s raining, and somethimes that also means big increases in wind speed –
we are in one right now, torrential rain, and wind increased suddenly from
14 to 25 kts. and big shifts. Then after a while you sail out from under the
cloud, and things settle down.

We have been lucky this past 24hours we have made great progress northwards,
the wind has been stronger than predicted with the knock on effect of an
increased boatspeed, and the counter on the DTF meter rapidly reducing. We
need to make us some good miles now however as we have the doldrums to
cross, and then some long upwind tacks back to Muscat. For our doldrums
crossing however we might be lucky, we are hoping to find our way through
them by noon tomorrow – being slow for just 6-9 hours, we have been picking
a spot to cross 10S for a few days now, and will contiue to look at the
satellite pictures for next 6 hours to see if any adjustment needs to be
made – we are looking for the place where the winds turn most quickly
between SE and W or NW. There is some science to this and a lot of luck. We
hope to have the science about right, and are hoping our general good
fortune so far this trip will see us right for the part of the equation.


Life is warm onboard as you can imagine, cabin tempretures are in the 30s
during the day, and seawater ( and hence our drinking water) temp is right
up there too 28 degrees – It’s little wonder that the islands of Mauritius
are so loved by holiday makers. We of course don’t have the luxuary of any
cooling systems, no AC, no cold drinks, no cold food. We are to some
degree relient on old fashioned ways to cool down, drink lots, sweat lots
but also have a small electric fan by each bunk. It’s not hard to see why
this area was so feared by the sailors of old – sometimes sail powered ships
would be stuck in the doldrums for days, weeks even, driving the crew to
madness. We have the luxuary of a good supply of freshwater supplied by the
watermaker, rather than being reliant on rain clouds, and ships stores. We
have hi-tech food and drink adatives to replace the salts and other minerals
washed out in our sweat, and we have snack bars designed to ensure we get a
proper daily dose of vitamins and other minerals. We also have a super
lightweight hull, and efficient sails so any wind we have can be quickly
harnessed to forward progress. Being on a sail powered whaling ship must
have been incredibly tough.


This part of the indian ocean is interesting – we are sailing in 2400m deep
water, but to our West, a large areas of shallow water – Cargados Caragos
Shoal is just 16m deep in places, and must be a meeting point for all sorts
of seallife. We have had our own fair share over night – with Mohsin
rescuing a flying fish that found it’s way into the cockpit at speed… when
they hit it’s quite a shock, at first i thought something had fallen from
the mast, but quickly realised what it was. We haven’t seen any of the big
ones yet – but this was a good size and did well to make it back into the
sea with Mohsin’s assistance. It could so easily have been flying fish into
frying pan, as a title to today’s email.

So in the time it’s taken to write this, the squall is gone, Mohsin has had
a shower in it, and it’s bright sunshine skies again – wind direction back
to normal, and we are doing 16kts once more….. .nice