NEAR DISASTER

Yesterday I was enjoying a nice day of following seas, thinking to myself that this was the first day in 1,000 miles where the wind was aft of the beam.  So I’m listening to Kora music on my headphones and pumping my water maker in a effort to produce a half gallon of water to make dinner with when all of a sudden POP!   Half of my watermaker shot across the cabin like a bottle rocket.  For a good 30 seconds I was in shock, I couldn’t believe my watermaker just blew up.  For the next 30 seconds I gave out a yell that could of woke up godzilla. I thought all was lost… There are many things I could do without and even more things that I could fix or jerry rig if they broke – but the loss of my watermaker would mean diaster. I picked up my sat phone (completely freaking out) and called my good friend Simon Edwards.  Simon runs a boat delivery business (Endurance Yacht Deliveries) and has done 350,000 miles at sea.  Over the last 5 years I’ve sailed over 12,000 miles with Simon and he has been a bit of a mentor (If I’mm Daniel-son, he’s Mr Meogi) This isn’t the first time Simon has helped me when I was in a jam at sea (It’s a long story).  Simon makes a few calls and tells me to call back in 24 hours.   When I call Simon back he has found a new water maker and got some guys together who are going to hop in a boat and bring it to me. Friday is a holiday in Canada so I won’t get the watermaker until Monday.  I will meet the boat in a place called Bowl Bay, which is two days sail from here.   So I have a few days to kill so if you see that I haven’t gone to far lately it because I’m biding my time.  There is no reason to get close to land until Sunday night.  The best part of this situation is that I don’t have to stop. I will lose 3 days because of this situation but since I left 3 days early (before June 15th) it all works out fine.
I also found out that my watermaker was an older model.   I guess they have redesigned the survivor 35 for military standards.  I thought it was strange that a watermaker would pop like popcorn after only 14 days of use and less then 13 gallons of fresh water being made. It says you can make a gallon in a hour and I was only making a half gallon in 45min, so I was going easy on it.  The bottom line is the trip will go on and thanks to Simon I will only lose 3 days.

Besides the watermaker fiasco things have been good.  I have been stuck sailing in pea soup fog for the last 4 days straight.  Sailing in the thick fog is quite erie and at night the fog cuts right through your cloths and chills you to the bone.   I will probably be in the fog another 5 days or so, considering I have to wait until monday to meet the boat with my watermaker.  I’ll try to anwer some questions in my next entry.