Retrospective, now that I've had some sleep.

@ Starbucks again. That's two free mentions they've had. More than three and they owe me a commission.

So, this will have to brief as the laptop is chewing through it's (admittedly old) battery pretty fast these days.

A feww quick thoughts on the trip over here ...

Of the 25-ish days, I had square on following wind for about 22 of them, the other 3 days it wasn't far off. Now the some 'old salts' amongst you will be thinking ... "ooh nice, easy sailing'. But hang on, consider ... single handed, and the auto-pilot died after about day 5. That's 20 days of following seas trying to 'round up' the boat every thirty seconds. (For the non-sailors, waves coming from behind the boat try to push the back of the boat away from the direction you're going, and it's called 'rounding up') Then try to cook, eat, sleep, adjust sails, pole out, etc. Clearly I managed to do it, but it was sometimes a bit of a struggle. I was hugely fortunate that the weather was very kind to me. I didn't see winds reach over thirty knots or seas over 3 metres the whole way. If the auto-pilot had been working it would have been a dream run.

As it was I lost about 3 days and sailed about an extra 400 miles. All part of the fun.

The worst day? I woke up one morning, just before sunrise, and the electrics were all dead. All of them. I figured that I must have left something switched on and drained the battery. "No matter ..." I muttered,  ..."solar panel will pick it up again in a couple of hours". Bite to eat and shake out some sail. Ten minutes later Clank, clatter, clatter, loose steering wheel. A quick glance tells me that turning the wheel isn't turning the rudder post, which in a way was a good thing, as it meant that the problem was the connection between the wheel and the post, not the rudder itself. So I'm digging out all the gear in the cockpit locker that I have to go through to get under the cokpit to see what the problem is, and after a while I say to myself ...

"All I need now is for ship to come along." Murphy replies: "A big orange one with hundreds of containers stacked on the deck so they can't see you?" "Yes", I reply, "... one like that, I guess". Murphy giggles the glee of the devil. "Oh good", he whispers. Next time I get out of the locker and look around. Yup, a ship's lights on the horizon. Angle not changing, so heading straight for me. "Crap". Forget identifying the problem ... start the engine. Can't, no electrics. Call him on the rad ... no electrics. Dig out the emergency tiller and get out of his way!"

I'd guess that I moved the boat about 400 yards before the ship, a nice orange one with lots of containers on it, sailed by about 600 yards away. So he would have missed me by 200 yards anyway. Really, there was nothing to worry about, huh? 

The electric problem didn't go away. I hadn't left anything on; rather, the solar panel's voltage regulator had died two days earlier, and wasn't re-charging the battery. And the alternator wasn't working either, so there was no charge on the starter battery. Both of these are yet to be fully resolved, but I did a 'McGyver' on the solar panel and managed to get enough power in the system to get me here.

Best day? Most of the others. Biggest single impression? Mind boggling solitude. I went for 4 or 5 days at a time seeing no trace of human activity beyond the boat. I started reciting a litany: "water, horizon, sky" when I looked around. It included everything I saw.

Gotta run, battery is now low and Starbuck's staff are beginning to give me 'looks'.

Raymarine's local agent says their 'tech' is away till Monday, so I'm here for bit longer yet. (It's Friday here).