Trip Update - 16th October 2008 Madeira - Canaries Day 1
Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Thu 16 Oct 2008 09:53
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Position: 31:09:45N
15:25:84W
Well we are en route to the Canaries
and out in the deep blue ocean once again.
We still weren't sure where we were
heading when we set off - just said we would head South till we saw land - and
with a vague plan to go to the Selvagem Islands en route. Once out, we
read the pilot books and decided that the Eastern islands of Graciosa, Lanzarote
and Fuerteventura sound nicest as they have lots of snady beaches for the
kids. So we headed onto a course of 140deg M and got on with it. Not
going to the Selvagem Islands as that would take us too far downwind.
Aiming for Isla Graciosa which is small island at Northern tip of
Lanzarote.
Our course is pretty-much beam-on to
the wind & sea so it has been a rolly and wet sail so far. Wind has
been between 15 & 22kts and seas 1-1.5m but it is the direction which is a
killer - nigh-on impossible to move around the boat, and lying in the saloon you
get pelted with apples & oranges from the fruit net as we roll. Have
done 128M in 23hrs so far; 139M to go so nearly halfway. Girls all fine
but have felt sick at various points. Millie has a black eye & big
graze from a fall in a park in Funchal yesterday so she is being very
brave.
Have a problem with charging the
batts - alternator voltage regulator is showing a high voltage (18.5V) which is
tripping the external regulator and net result appears to be a charge rate of
about 12Ah on the domestic batteries, presumably it is defaulting to the basic
alternator regulator & split charge which is inefficient. Very
annoying as it means we need to be very tight on consumption and run the engine
3-4 hrs each day. Think a new alternator might be in order, but probably a
bit more investigation required first.
Spoke to all our friends on the SSB
this morning - they are all heading to Tenerife so are already 70M to the SW of
us - it is sad that we are now splitting from the pack as we took a lot of
comfort on the last passage from knowing there were other boats going the same
way as us. Hopefully we'll meet up with some new boats in the
Canaries.
Lots of love Ollie, Sarah, Emilia
& Jemima xxxx
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