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Jessica Watson: Sweet water, fickle winds and a muggy cabin aboard Ella's Pink Lady
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As she begins her fourth week at sea, Jessica Watson finds the winds to be fickle but is grateful for the abundance of fresh water from the rain showers.
Reporting in her blog for Monday, 11/9/08, she notes that Sunday night was dark and very humid - but Monday began differently. "The sea and wind finally dropped off (and the sun came out!) this morning so I was out of my bunk bright and early ready to launch into a few jobs on deck that I'd been putting off due to the bouncy conditions.
I got through my little list of maintenance and gave Ella's Pink Lady a really good check over for chafe and wear. Then the wind dropped off even more, to the point where we were left to roll a bit un-comfortably, not making any progress."
While the rain showers in the past few days have made the cabin uncomfortably humid and hot, the fresh water from above allowed her to top off her water tanks and do some fresh water cleanup for both the boat and herself.
Rain at sea - particularly in warm areas like her present location - presents both the benefits of fresh water and the need to keep everything below decks as dry as possible. This means that the cabin must be sealed up - raising the already high temperatures and humidity.
Since she uses fresh water sparingly, the recent showers allowed her to use the mainsail and gutters built into the hard dodger to funnel the rain and completely top off her water tanks and a few extra containers for wash up as well. Fresh water is used only for drinking and cooking, so her stores for the voyage were not depleted much before she was able to replenish with water from above.
"In fact I ended up with more water than I knew what to do with - even after washing all my clothes. So I decided to get right into it and ended up giving every surface in the cabin a wipe down. With the music up and the air temperature down for a while with the rain, I was really enjoying myself and I never thought I hear myself saying that!"
Later on Monday, the seas flattened and Ella's Pink Lady was able to go back to moving at a decent pace in 13 knots of wind. While she is apparently glad to have a respite from the waves of the past few days, another fall off in the wind may hamper her progress.
"Just glanced at the speedo and we're doing a very healthy 7knots! I wouldn't say no to more of this, but the wind is predicted to drop off again soon, so I expect the next few days will be hard work trying to keep us moving along."
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