Day 3 Thursday 20/10/11
34:17.45N 10:39.50W at 10 am UTC Making good progress – have been gybing our way south sailing under Genoa and Mizzen only since Tuesday night in northerly Force 5 most of time but force 6 all last night. Sea uncomfortable with 3m waves & some rogue ones which we surf down at up to 11.7 knots SOG (speed over ground) sometimes its best not to look behind, motion from waves makes everything hard work especially sleeping as we slide round, have tried to pole out Genoa but that hasn't improved motion. We left Sines with Rafiki only as Paul & Catherine were not back from locating some parts they needed and we haven't seen Rafiki since Tuesday night when we gybed for more comfortable track and they didn’t yesterday morning we were 20 miles apart already! We planned to go to Isla Graciosa to anchor when we get to Canaries but we are now thinking of going straight to Lanzarote – Arrieta if weather going to be bad Sunday & Monday as shelter better. Batteries are needing extra topping up from engine all else is well. The PC stopped recognising Satellite phone so unable to update blog or send emails – spent day trying to sort problem but unable to. Batteries also not getting enough power from solar panels so we had to run the engine just to charge them. |