26/12/23 - Boxing Day 🎄- A game of poker with wind and fuel & a Christmas Fairy

The very light wind and very slow progress continued through my Watch too. And it was still very warm - no need for even a T shirt. Four days ago I was still putting on a light fleace in the early hours of the morning. This morning around 0400 with the temperature at its lowest I put on s T shirt for a couple of hours. 

During the last hour of my Watch (which ended at 0800 Barbados time) the wind backed to the North and it rained for 10 minutes or so. I hoped this heralded the arrival of more wind too, but it proved a very short lived affair and very soon we were wallowing around in anticyclonic puffs of wind from all directions and mostly going backwards which at that point meant south! The Hydrovane finally gave up but it's ability to keep steering Bonny - no light-weight let's face it - in wind relative speeds down to around 4 knots, was impressive. I also noticed a small tear in the cruising chute. So once Mick was up we doused it and continued under power at an economical 1500 revs giving us 4 knots. 

Midway through the day our visitor arrived. A tiny little thing not much bigger than a sparrow. I think it's a Fairy Prion...

With Sharon arriving on 2nd January, I'd like enough time to get settled in and find the best place to anchor, clean up the boat, and do some washing and shopping (and possibly find out whether we can find anywhere to stay ashore in case she finds the boat at anchor too uncomfortable - I don't know how much rolling we'll experience) before she arrives. Therefore, I don't really want to arrive any later than the 30th.

At a speed of 4 knots or so, we would make our waypoint (now) just to the south of Barbados at around 0400 on 29/12/23.

But there's a catch. We don't have enough fuel to motor all the way there. The fuel tank gauge is unreliable and so we have to estimate the amount of fuel we have left, based on engine hours chalked up. We think that from the time we started the engine we could motor for another 2.5 days and possibly 3. But the more we push it to 3, the greater the chance of sucking up muck in the bottom of the tank which could put the engine out of action.

The plan for now therefore is to continue under power until around 0800 on the 27th by which time we should have just enough wind to continue onwards slowly under sail. More sustained wind is then due on Friday 29/12. That should enable us to get in on the Saturday/Sunday 30th/31st!