Day 19 - Engine Off - Code 0 Up - Boarded by Portugese Marine Police
Bonkers
Donald Macdonald
Sun 26 May 2024 18:48
We did do 24 hours of motoring, over half of it at reduced revs to slow down so not as to out run the wind coming in from behind. Since mid morning we have had 6-8 knots of breeze a little more aft than forecast so not brilliant with Code 0 up although we are managing 5 knots. If we can keep this up aiming at Ponta Delgarda we should arrive tomorrow evening in the dark which I did hope to avoid. 146nm to go.
A little bit of excitement this afternoon when we were intercepted by the Portugese Marine Police and boarded. Apparently our AIS is intermittent, so will need some investigating. All our papers, passports etc were checked and all OK. At the time we were about 10 miles off Horta.
This morning whilst motoring we had 2 other yachts, multihulls and a lot bigger at 18m overtake us doing 7-8 knots compared to our 4. We could see them go into Horta on AIS and we know ARC Europe left St Maarten about 2 weeks ago and their 1st stop was Horta so think they may be part of that group. The ARC is why we did not opt to into Horta because if like Las Palmas when ARC was there they were unable to take any randoms turning up, probably not quite as bad here but prefer not to get turned away.
Dinner this eveining will be Chicken meatballs in gravy, carrots, mashed potato, cheese, baguette then pineaple rings in juice.