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The World Cruise of Veleda IV |
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At a Gravesend Buoy April 15, 2000 Gravesend, Thames River 51 26.7N, 000 32.1E We are moored on a buoy at Gravesend waiting out a gale that was not predicted when we left yesterday afternoon. We didn't leave until 1430, as in the morning I went all the way out to Wokingham (50 miles) to get a GSM gold card installed on my Mac laptop. We left as soon as I got back to Limehouse. We originally wanted to get down to the Medway, 40 miles downstream, but as it would have been after dark before we arrived, we decided to stop early at this visitor's buoy at the Gravesend Sailing Club . I'm glad we did, as we are reasonably secure from the gale on the buoy. We are a bit bouncy, but not too bad. We were able to identify that there was a visitor mooring buoy off the Gravesend Sailing Club from our East Coast Rivers pilot. This lower end of the Thames is a stark industrial lowlands with several ships, tugs, cable layers, and a couple of yachts on mooring buoys. We picked up the mooring at close to low tide in 12 feet of water, so we would be O.K. for the depth. The wind increased during the night and this morning it was blowing at least force 7 at 25 to 35 knots, and has been for most of the day. The forecast we had yesterday from the Met Office, received by fax at CA House, said only force 4 (winds at 11 to 16 knots) was expected. This morning’s short wave broadcast, however, said gale warnings with force 7 and 8 expected. So we are staying put at the buoy. The wind was so strong this morning that it was causing a downdraft when we tried to start our coal stove for some warmth. At Limehouse we had shore power for an electric heater and just used the stove to supplement the small heater. However, now the coal stove is our only source of heat. Getting the stove burning properly took over an hour of futile attempts to ignite the coals, with smoke billowing out the ash tray and the hinged door. I eventually went outside and covered the windward half of the chimney with tin foil to reduce the downdraft. It worked and we are comfortable inside even though we have 5 degree temperatures, heavy winds, and rain outside. In spite of this, I am still glad to be back on the water. It is better than all the running around downtown London I have been doing this last week to complete final details before leaving. One of those details has been to get the proper GSM connector for our Nokia mobile phone to hook up to our Macintosh laptop. I spent several days trying to find a Mac dealer. When I finally found one, he had the connector, but did not know if my laptop had the software installed to hook it up. So, I took the tube back to Limehouse to pick up the laptop and went back to the dealer. No luck! Mine didn’t have the software, and he didn’t know where I could download it. However he thought he might have a personal copy on his machine at home. That was Friday. I went all the way back on Monday to see if he found it. He was not there, as he was now on holidays! You don’t want to hear about the bureaucracy I went through trying to get my National Health Service number! Twenty phone calls, four offices, and still not obtained. I am eligible, as I got British citizenship, and have been working at a local high school, which should have processed the number for me. We were going to leave on April 12, but that day was grey and rainy, so we decided to wait. I gave up on the Macintosh dealers and instead tried the Nokia route. After another five or six calls with lengthy voice mail menus I got the number of a dealer who could order the hardware for me and who would install it on my machine next day. However he was in Wokingham, 50 miles away. O.K., next day to Wokingham and three hours and two dealerships later, the GSM Gold Card connector was finally installed. We left as soon as I got back to Limehouse. Judy had everything squared away on Veleda, and we were finally off! I didn’t have a chance to test out the mobile connector until today. IT WORKED!!! So this is the first log to be sent from Veleda while at a buoy, not hooked to any land lines. Ain’t technology wonderful! If the weather settles down tomorrow, we will be off directly to Holland, a 28 hour sail from here if we catch the tides right. Next Log |
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