Doldrums still clutching Mhadei

The doldrums made their presence felt again with a squall last night and then very light winds through the day. I had let down my guard and kept the full mainsail up at night with the Wind Vane steering the boat. Got up past midnight for a routine check and found a squall almost on top of us! Hectic activity of reefing the main and getting the Wind Vane off  followed and we just about made it through! Need to remember that we are still very much in the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) commonly known as doldrums. Another day or two and we should be out hitting the trade winds. Light and shifty winds through the day which died out completely by afternoon. The sea was also fairly calm so made use of the opportunity to change the two broken battens from the Main sail. That involved getting the entire sail down, climbing about 3 mtrs up the mast a number of times to remove the pieces of broken battens, and finally sitting on the boom and mainsail to insert the replacements. I think my horse riding skills, unused since passing out of the Academy 21 yrs back, came in handy in trying to sit on the boom of the rolling boat and working with both hands. But that was a task that required to be done before getting into the stronger trade winds. The broken pieces have already damaged the sail a bit and in sustained strong winds the damage could only increase. The battery monitor, an instrument that tells me the amount of battery capacity I have and when I need to charge them seems to have gone off finally. It had become erratic since

yesterday so thought of removing its connections and cleaning them. But having done so its just refusing to revive itself! Now I don't have any idea how much battery I am left with or when I charge whether they are actually charging. I think I will just run the generator every 12 hrs to ensure that they never run out of charge. May increase the diesel consumption marginally but with an efficient generator that should not be a cause for concern. Started the Watermaker for the first time during the trip as one of the tanks had become half empty. Not bad for 13 days of sailing! Another round of spectacular sunset in the evening with an already bright moon to the East. Looks like another sleepless night ahead as the wind keeps dying out every now and then. When it dies out you need to get on the deck and tighten the main sheet to stop the boom from thrashing around and when the wind picks up you need to rush and ease the mainsheet as otherwise the boat starts healing too much! Its also been a warm and clear day so a lot of moisture must have gone up which will eventually come down as a squall during the night and knowing our penchant for getting under every squall in the area we better keep our guard up!