DISPATCHES| TRACKER| RECEIVE DISPATCH ALERTS Dispatches The astronaut; note the wind generator in the background. Apollo 13 analogy August 31, 2010 (Day 50)    17.6588S,84.1258E I have been cooped up in the cabin again waiting out the cross SSW swells and strong 25-30 knot SE winds. The winds are forecast to come down to about 20 knots by tonight which will dramatically improve the sea state. I will now be sleeping less and putting in overtime whenever the sea allows me to row in order to control my course. I have to tell myself that the time to fight is at every opportunity beginning today, not when I am desperate and too late later. While I have my issues with these winds, my wind generator likes them... After my dreadful forever overcast and rainy experience on the Pacific convergence zone a while back, I had vowed to never rely only on solar panels. What we installed at LeisureCat in Fremantle back in June, is the smallest generator that is commercially available. It needs to be blowing 15-20 knots before this unit can generate one amp of current, it goes up from there. Now I can keep my batteries nicely charged, and can make 12-20 liters of water on demand for drinking, preparing meals, and for rinsing laundry and myself. As for the broken oars, this has the elements of Apollo 13 written all over it. Friends were fretting, thinking of how the oars could be fixed while I gathered oar measurements which I already sent to Concept2 for replacement oars. Concept2 had sponsored my oars in the past, and they are the best to assemble my custom oars again. That's the Houston part. At the same time I am sgain waiting for a relatively calm day to continue my spare oar project. That's the astronaut part. If I succeed to my satisfaction, we can all sleep better and I can row again with less hesitation. Hopefully it won't come to hobbling along by only one oar with counter rudder action, or having to arrange an oar resupply at sea! Erden. . . Previous Dispatches A spare oar, maybe...    August 29, 2010 (Day 48) Yesterday I finally had a bit of respite from the seas. The wind cut back to 15-20 knots, the waves settled to a rolling pattern without rushing white caps or splashing cross swells. With that opport 1,600 nautical miles    August 27, 2010 (Day 46) As of sunset, I am 1,594 nautical miles away from Carnarvon where I launched on July 13. This is the distance if I could pull a string taut between my location and Carnarvon over the curving surface o Totally jinxed!    August 23, 2010 (Day 42) I am not a superstitious person, yet the ocean has a way of messing with my mind. Call it Mr. Murphy, or "doing his Viking thing" like Jill Fredston says about her husband Doug in "Rowing to Latitude, View more dispatches Powered by CONTACT 3 expedition software