on the way to LP 2
04/11/2010
Distance: ~137 NM “31:43N
11:33W” It is amazing how much wild life comes to visit us. From time to time
little birds come to have a rest on our life lines (finches?). According
to Steve they come to have a toilette break. We saw several sunfish (some in
the Strait), tuna, leather back turtle, porpoise and of course dolphins. Dolphins are
everywhere in the Med and apparently in the At the end Kynan asked for his camera and took some great shots and
that was it. I could not believe it. He even managed to video them. Busy morning. We have been looking forward to try our Parasailor. A
sort of combination of a spinnaker and a kite from a Kite Surf shop. It is
supposed to be fantastic for down-wind sailing. While we were waiting for the
favorable winds we decided to move the dinghy from the davit (a steel structure
at the back of the boat to suspend the dinghy above water) to the front deck
and start up our DuoGen. DuoGen is a combination wind/water propeller generator
that will supply us with the all important energy. The Solar panels we cannot
supply us with enough energy. We have approx. 1 square meter which produces
only about 2 Amps, hardly enough to run our fridge and definitely not
sufficient to run the autopilot. Back to our DuoGen: it is a tower mounted on the stern and we can pivot
its propeller into the wake of the boat to generate electricity. It is a
marvel of technology and supposed to generate 10 Amps that would keep all our
fancy gear going on our way to the I found a shackle
pin under the mast. This caused some worry and sent Kynan on top of the mast to
check all the fittings. The boys spent a couple of hours working on these
projects while I kept the boat “heave to” (facing the waves) so
that we would not roll sideways. They lifted the dinghy out in the quite large
swell (6-8 feet) moved it forward, tested the DuoGen While all these things
were happening cruise ship stopped nearby. I imagined that perhaps a CCTV
focused on Fenix provided live coverage of our efforts to entertain the
breakfast crowd on the snow white cruise ship, while the waiters in white coats
politely asked “Some more coffee
Madam?” Story: It reminded me of a famous, exclusive hotel
in the 50s near the Matterhorn in I real terms the cruise ship was probably just doing some illegal
sewage dumping before going to port in By lunch time the
DuoGen looked good, the dinghy was sorted but the wind disappeared. Sadly we
had to start motoring towards our destination. I cooked lentils with a meat medley and due to the really favorable
circumstances, no heeling, no rolling, we decided to celebrate crossing the
half way mark to |