Trip Update - 2nd October 2008 Cascais - Madeira update #2
Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Thu 2 Oct 2008 08:46
Well we are now just over halfway to Porto Santo, the small island 20M NE of Madeira, which is our destination. This means that we are a long way from anywhere - 255M back to Cascais, 210M to Cabo St Vincent, the SWly tip of Portugal; 270M from Casablanca, and 225M to Porto Santo. The nearest solid ground is 4.6km beneath our keel! We did about 135M from 0900 yesterday to today.
We had a good day yesterday and a good night; the wind was between 15 & 25kts Northerly - just as the Trades should be - so it has been pleasant sailing with the genoa poled out & a full main. Very glad I sorted out proper preventers for the sails. Seen very little wildlife apart from our own two monkeys - we had some dolphins join us at 0200 this morning and although it was pitch dark (no moon), you couldl see their phosphorescent wakes as they carved around the boat, like airplane vapour trails.
We've been fortunate to be able to see "Duende"'s nav lights astern of us for most of the night - always reassuring to see another boat. We just spoke to them and they had just caught a couple of dorade. A little shipping has passed by but nothing close. Think "Tyche" is probably up to 50M astern. The 3 bigger boats ("Walrus", "Samba", "Saeftinghe") left 24hrs later than us, so we might pick them up on the radio sched in 45 mins. It has been really good to talk to the others on the VHF & SSB, it is a real highlight of the day.
Finally sorted out the Aries yesterday after a few false starts. It is excellent and will help to keep energy consumption down. We are using more amps than I was hoping - getting the fridge thermostat set correctly so it keeps things cool but does not defrost everything is key; if it is slightly too high it is almost on 100% cycle. The price you pay for a cold beer...
Currently looking like we will arrive at some point in the night Friday night, but it is a long way away still. There is a big thunderstorm off to port, so it might get a little interesting shortly.
Love to all
Ollie, Sarah, Emilia, Jemima xxxx