Abby to Round the Horn on Tuesday

Its been a pretty nice, normal day out here. The wind has been a little lighter. I've had about 25 knots all day occasionally picking up to 30-35. I've been making around 8-9.5 knots with just my little stay sail up! I had been worried that pulling down my whole big main sail would decrease my speed quite a bit, but I was happy to find that it hardly slowed me down at all and is making it a lot easier for my auto pilot to stay on course. I have been gybing at least twice a day as Wild Eyes doesn't sail well DDW (dead down wind). It means that instead of making 200 miles of progress each day, I am sailing a little off course all the time and making more around 150 miles on course. A little frustrating but not much else to be done.

The swells are pretty big - about 20 feet. It makes it pretty uncomfortable crawling around down below in the aft end of the boat. I'm using my back up auto pilot right now and I want to get my main auto pilot fixed so that I can use it as a back up. The problem is that there is a pretty bad transmission fluid leak (the steering is hydraulic). I think the leak is in the ram but I can't find it without the auto pilot turned on.

I should have some pretty calm weather in a few days so I'll be able to turn off the autopilot, lash the tiller and hook up the first auto pilot and get a good look at things working down below.

I've had some problems with my water maker recently. I think it's just that there is air in the tubes and I am really hoping I'll be able to sort it out with the bleeding valves. If that doesn't get the air out, I could have to go through all the hoses back there which really wouldn't be a very fun job.

My cabin stays pretty warm, around 47 degrees during the day, and a little colder during the night. The water temperature is 44 so I don't think I'll be going swimming for a little while! For where I am it's incredibly warm. There have been people who have gone around Cape Horn and had 28 degree water.

I keep trying to get some new pictures for the blog, but everytime I go out and look around all there is is grey! Behind me are gray walls of water that look pretty scary - like they're right about to break on top of little Wild Eyes.

In front, well, lots of water and gray clouds.

Tomorrow should be the big day - rounding Cape Horn. The weather is forecasted to settle down so I hope that I will be able to get outside and enjoy the view!

Abby

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