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February 4, 2007
Watermaker Failure
LOCATION: Arabian Sea Crossing
Day: 5
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:18°47374
Latitude: E: 069°42023
Miles from Mumbai: 190
Miles to Djibouti: 1,610
Sher has promised to write the next update, just in case any of you were wondering why I'm hogging all the line space.
We're gradually clawing away from the coast and into the meat of the Arabian Sea, although progress is quite slow with the wind coming exclusively from the north, prompting us to take an aggressive heading of around 300 degrees in order to avoid getting swept south. This effectively means we're pedaling against the wind and waves for much of the time which is proving hard on the knees. However I'm keen to keep as many northerly miles in hand as insurance against being put onto the Somali coast in the second half of the voyage. So a little extra sweat and pain at this early stage will I hope pay off later on down the road.
Both fans have already burnt out, so conditions on board are extremely hot and sweaty (the pedal seat area is already beginning to smell like a farmyard). The sleeping compartment is particularly ill-ventilated, and we're only able to sleep when we're too exhausted to stay awake (which is pretty much all the time). Another casualty today was the Katadyn electric watermaker that stopped producing fresh drinking water. After spending nearly $1,000 USD on new parts for this machine and countless hours getting it to work before leaving Mumbai I am furious that it has failed us so early into the voyage. Then again I am really not surprised as these wretched things have consistently failed on almost every ocean leg of the expedition so far. So we've reverted to using one of the hand operated backups which just produced a good gallon of decent drinking water for around 45 minutes of pumping. Fingers crossed it continues to behave itself for the remainder of the crossing.
jason
Posted on February 4, 2007 4:22 PM