Some satisfaction

Hejira
Nick Mines
Sat 13 Jun 2015 16:46

43 22.067N 008 23.091W

Saturday 13th June 2015

Another day, another problem solved. Yesterday’s challenges revolved around the ability to obtain a forecast, not only for our days passage but so that I could assess whether we needed to press on beyond La Coruna because of weather conditions at Cape Finistere next week for the following crew.

Despite repeated re-boots, calls to Gandalf (the company tecky) and setting changes, I couldn’t get the Wifi to connect so I had to resort to the satellite option for the weather. Despite retiring, I am fortunate enough to enjoy a retainer and continuing relationship with my company and, among other things, they kindly provide me with my mobile phone and data sim card for my Wifi. It turned out that my data sim had hit a limit and needed ‘freeing up’ and this was the only reason I was unable to connect. So, after wasting loads of time, effort and money (on the satellite) it was a simple, easily rectified issue which has thankfully now been sorted out – until I reach the next limit that is……

We spent a most pleasant evening at anchor, cooking a spaghetti puttanesca which is the easiest on board meal using mostly long life ingredients. The main ingredients are anchovies, capers and black olives, all from jars and you may be interested to know that it is known as ‘whore’s pasta’…… Another exercise achieved at anchor was the re-programming of the television to receive Spanish TV, a very worthwhile exercise as we now have 50 channels jabbering away in an incomprehensible language. It is probably a sad comment on our age as, of the literally hundreds of DVD’s on board we chose to watch a box set of Fred Dibnah – then fell asleep!

Our wind instrument is still showing complete nonsense and in an attempt to resuscitate it, we had done a complete system reset which only succeeded in losing all of the data (including waypoints) and the core system settings. As a result we found that our COG (course over the ground) and course steered vectors were displaced by a good 35 degrees on the plotters. I had only been able to find the option of adjustment of a maximum of 10 degrees but trawling though the myriad menus this morning I stumbled across the ability to align the compass with the GPS course. This we did and the vectors now make more sense although we did it under sail so we have introduced a minor leeway misalignment which we should be able to put right under engine – if I can find my way through the maze of menus back to the holy grail.

Our passage today has taken us along the most rugged coastline and, as a result, the wind direction and strength has fluctuated from flukey to needing a reef. The final leg after Cabo Prior was directly into the wind so we motored into Marina La Coruna, re-fuelled and took up our berth for the next 4 days. Plenty of time for some jobs, and organising car hire in preparation for the crew change on Tuesday.