Princ Christian Sund to ? - Day 5 - 28/8/25

Oh dear, oh dear, what's to become of us? Not only did we run out of tonic a week or so back, but now we've broken the last remaining glass on the boat. So assuming conditions ever improve sufficiently, to make red wine or rum and coke an attractive proposition, we'll have to drink it out of plastic. We may also have run out of ice berg. We've had no sun except for 10 minutes a couple of days ago which means we're low on power and so it doesn't look like the freezer will go on today. That means our baby ice bergs, which, as Mick has pointed out, may be thousands of years old, may melt away to nothing if they have not done so already! A sad state of affairs indeed.

On a brighter note however, my soda bread is a great success. It's even contrived to look like the real thing. The inside as well as the outside is an authentic brown colour as if made with wholemeal flour which is pretty impressive given that it wasn't. It must have been that dollop of molasses that worked the deception.

George and I both doze during the morning. When his formal 2 hour early morning off-Watch period ends at 1030 I suggest he stays put. I've taken up residence on the Starboard saloon bunk which, now we were almost running, is a tenable option and despite its short length, courtesy of the cabin heater, I find more comfortable than the pilot berth, which George appears to be relatively comfortable in.

George gets up around 1130 and makes a welcome cup of tea and then I decide to investigate the soda bread which as reported earlier is a success. I also make breakfast. The boat is rolling so much that it's back to granola, fruit (I pick out the last few grapes that are mold free - it's remarkable how long they have lasted) yogurt and milk. 

George retires back to the pilot berth after breakfast still feeling queasy as a consequence of the constant rolling. 

I pump the bilges which I have been doing once a day since we left. It takes about a hundred strokes of the pump every day. I suspect most of the water is coming in via the anchor locker with some also getting in via the stern gland and the cockpit lockers. 

Then I continue my investigation of the disappeared UK charts on OpenCPN. Other regions are also no longer accessible, they too have, so the Application tells me, expired. But strangely the Carribbean charts are still available despite expiring on the same date last year! I'll investigate further once back on-line via Starlink. 

I hope it doesn't take long to connect Starlink today because we are low on power. There was a slight glimmer of brightness earlier and the charge rate went up to ten amps, but that didn't last long and we're now down to charging at just under two amps with the batteries at 47%. Thank goodness Mick persuaded me to invest in Lithium batteries and related kit and fitted it and also that we installed the two extra solar panels in Grenada last year.

It took about 20 minutes to connect Starlink despite the rolling. With one exception, when I had to restart it after an hour of trying, the maximum time it has taken on this trip is about 30 mins. That's a lot better than the sometimes 2 hours it took when Mick and I crossed to the Carribbean in 2023/24. The rolling on those occasions was even worse than on this passage (although George may take some convincing of that) and it was before Starlink updated their software to allow the dish to sit on an horizontal plane. At that time Mick came up with an ingenuous gimbal mechanism made with bits of string and bungee cord in which we were able to suspend the dish. I think the severe rolling then was due to very confused seas and the fact that we were running under twin headsails with no mainsail. The lack of a mainsail meant there was no sideways pressure thereby allowing the boat to roll more. On this passage we've kept the mainsail up and swapped the genoa over from one side to the other and gybed as necessary, subject to the wind direction relative to our desired course.

Meanwhile the grey, damp, rocking and rolling continues and it sounds like the wind is increasing again!

George cooks another tasty supper of pork steaks, potatoes and coleslaw. The pork steaks we bought in both St John's and in Greenland have been excellent - far better than those I usually come across in the Supermarkets at home.

I wash up and the read some more of the excellent novel that George has lent me. One he bought in St John's - historical fiction set in Newfoundland's early colonial days which explores the relationship between the English settlers and the native aboriginal Beothuk people, who are eventually wiped out. It's "River Thieves" by  Michael Crummey. Given my own recently developed obsession with Newfoundland's history, it's a very timely read. 

I knew nothing about the Beothuk before reading River Thieves and it's rather depressing to come across yet another native people that the English wiped off the map (and I think it was primarily an English as opposed to a British imperialism that underpinned the exploitation of the burgeoning colony).

I have however read some historical accounts and contemporary records documenting the development of the  Newfoundland fishery and subsequent colony and Crummey's richly descriptive word tapestry serves to illuminate those dry records with a penetrating insight into what the lives of the people fishing, hunting, trapping and trading must have been like in Newfoundland in those very wild times. It's as if he was there and witnessed the events himself - quite extraordinary!

And now back to the North Atlantic..

I go to bed at 1000 as usual and this time manage to get some sleep. 

Our midnight to midnight run in a straight line is 143 nautical miles. Our distance to Lands End is 928. Yesterday at the same time it was 1061 which means we're 133 closer. That is another good result!