Another lovely sunrise

Position at 10.00 Monday 1st February
0820.079N
08625.763E
24 hour run from 10.00 31th to 10.00 1st 151 miles average 6.29 kph 314 miles to go

We had a calmer day yesterday, the seas have gone back down. I can cope with high winds but I don’t like big seas. Life on board continues. I spent most of the day reading my Lonely Planet guide book for Sri Lanka. It looks like a wonderful country, can’t wait to explore it.
We are now at latitude 08 degrees. Latitudes are the rings that run around the globe. The equator is zero, the north pole is 90 degrees and the UK is between 50 and 60 degrees north of the equator, that’s why it’s cold there! As I said we are now at 08 degrees which is the furthest north we’ve been since coming through the Panama canal in 2010 and as far north as we intend to go this year. It’s still hot here but has started getting a little colder at night. I still only where shorts and t-shirts on watch but find I’m needing a wrap on my night watch now. Not sure how I’ll feel coming back into the cold UK waters but that’s not for a few years yet.

Chinese fishing boat 1000s of miles from home

Interesting situation occurred yesterday evening. We were eating our delicious beef rendang up in the cockpit (everything we eat is served in a bowl because food would slide off a plate plus we can only use forks as we need to hold the bowl). It was a beautiful evening with a nice sunset when Bill noticed a boat coming in our direction. We haven’t seen anything for about 3 days now but this boat was coming straight for us. They should have given way to us because firstly we were sailing, and power should give way to sail, plus we were on starboard tack. It was a Chinese fishing boat, although he wasn’t fishing, and I don’t think they had even seen us but we were on a collision course. Bill started the engine and went behind them. After they had passed I noticed they had turned their AIS system on which they certainly didn’t have on before hand. It proves that it’s necessary to keep a watch.
On the net later Nicone were about 11 miles south of us, Inspiration Lady is still about 134 miles behind us and Tintin are only about 27 miles away from us but ahead by about 10 miles. They also reported Chinese fishing boats in their path. May have been the same one.
We had to run the engine for an hour last night to charge the batteries, first time we’ve had to do that in 48 hours. The wind generator and solar panels are doing very well at keeping our bank of 4 new domestic batteries charged. I think Bill wrote an article on power management for the website. It will be on his technical page.
This morning it was less than 300 miles to go to the harbour entrance. Hopefully be in sometime Wednesday. Can’t wait.