Movie in the making
Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Mon 28 Feb 2011 04:24
What a luxury! A full nightâs sleep without having to get up. I was actually surprised that I could sleep for 8 hours straight, after sleeping for not more than one hour at a time for the last three weeks (and then with an uneasy feeling). Some say ignorance is bliss. But I say sleep is even better!
First thing in the morning I installed the new solar controller â a BlueSky 2000E with Max Power Point Tracking. Roy said MPPT is the thing to have, and I trust Roy. Then I put my kayak into the water to meet up with Henk, Scott and Midge for breakfast. It took me 20 minutes to paddle to Henk across the Lagoon, and I was pretty wet by the time I got there. Too much wind for the sit-on-top.
Scott arrived quickly afterwards and took us all to the shore with his RIB. Against the wind and waves, and then we were really wet. Actually I took my shirt and shorts off on the way and just sat there in the Dinghy in my trunks. But the sun was shining and we dried quickly enough.
We had breakfast at a great french bakery, and I had a chance to look at my regular emails for the first time in three weeks. That hadnât happened in ... 16 years. I had not forwarded them to the Iridium account, because with only 2400 Baud bandwidth is very, very precious. And I had a chance to read the comments on my blog.
I cried from laughing. My friends, I love you. You are wonderful, and Iâm the luckiest man alive to have you and your support. Iâm not surprised that I didnât feel lonely at sea â you were with me all the time. Thanks so much!
On my way back to Gudrun I stopped by at Nimble Navigator Mikeâs boat, and then I went back to see how the solar charger is doing. Wow! 20A charge. That is just unbelievable (do you hear me Chris â unbeLIEVAble!). Connected to the Rutland controller (also not cheap) the best I had got was 5A from one panel. And now the two panels give me four times that. Unbel^^^ awesome!
Then I started editing the movie of the crossing for real. I had three hours and thirtyfive minutes of footage. And now, 11 hours later, I think I have a version that I can show to Liz for reviewing. Itâs 17 minutes long, and at the moment I canât find more to throw out. But the most difficult part is yet to come â the soundtrack. I donât have anything out of the can that fits that length, even if I cut it down to half. So Iâll have to spend some time to cook up a score of my own. Iâm going to use âSoundtrack Proâ for that. And thatâs going to take me a day at least, because I have next to no knowledge of composing, and only very little of Soundtrack Pro. But Iâm looking forward to it. I wanted to do that since I was 14 and mixed music on my tape deck. Some things are worth waiting for, even if itâs 20 years. With a little luck I can upload it on Wednesday evening.
So, the plan for tomorrow is:
#1 get a dinghy
#2 find fast wifi, upload the movie and skype with Liz
#3 go shopping for groceries
#4 fix the head
#5 review and select pictures for posting to the blog
Hang on Matt! The pictures are coming. Some of them are also worth the wait ;-)