Adventuring

Where yesterday was a relaxing book club kind of day, today was definitely a work day. I worked the early evening (6-10) and middle morning (6-9) shifts last night. In between I slept like the dead for eight hours and woke to relieve Mark.

After that watch I motivated to do some toilet maintenance. There is a rubber valve on most marine toilets that allows liquid and material to be pushed out of the boat without allowing water to come back in the boat. The so called joker valve is a rather clever device that stretches open for passage from one direction and closes shut when trying to pass from the other direction. It's only shortcoming is that because it's made out of rubber it doesn't last very long or withstand much abuse. When the toilet bowl starts to fill by itself, it's time to replace the joker valve. I've replaced Quijote's many times.

We've been motoring again today to get us beyond these doldrums. As long as the seas and winds are mellow, we took the opportunity to transfer the remaining fuel and water tied to the deck into the ship's tanks. We calculate having about 85 gallons of diesel remaining of the 140 we started with. That's enough for six days of motoring. If we have ten days of sailing, we'll need about sixteen days of provisions to get to the next outpost. Ideally that would be home. As our quartermaster tells it we can make our provisions last that long. So we have 16 days of provisions and fuel as long as ten of those days demand no fuel. Will that be enough to get us home? It's hard to predict. Our luck will have to be better than it has been lately. Then again things could be going a la lot worse. We're still in the game and having the adventure of a lifetime.