Monday Dec 3, 2007-12-03

At 8AM I’m at the Port Police office.  It takes 8 people, two buildings, three offices, 500 Escudos (about ½ Euro), 35 minutes, and we’re cleared for Rio.

By Noon we’re at the fuel station in a queue.  We have been told the station is only open until 2PM.  At 12:10 a voice comes over the VHF announcing the station will be closed until 2PM. So I have to either wait a couple of hours more or toss the Capo Verdi Escudos I’ve got.  We’ve probably got enough fuel but I’ll wait a bit longer.

A bit longer turned out to be several hours.  We finally left at 16:15 having taken on 244 litres of fuel.  We could have taken another 100 or so but ran out of Escudos and they wouldn’t take plastic or Dollars, especially they wouldn’t take Dollars and we had spent our Euros.  Anyway an hour after leaving the harbour we have set our course for Rio and are actually on track. 2756 miles to go.  This should translate as less than 18 days but we’ll see what the wind Gods have in store for us.

The dolphins came back to wish us on our way after sunset but it was pretty dark so I couldn’t tell how many or what kind. As we cleared the lee of Sao Vincente the wind settled in to a healthy ENE Force 6 (25 knots) and we’re zipping along at over 9 knots.

Midnight.  I’ve just come back on watch.  The dolphins returned about an hour ago and stayed for 20 minutes. There is a lot of phosphoresce in the sea tonight and they left trails like torpedoes or tracer bullets on both sides of the boat.  The wind has gone East and we’re broad reaching on a course of 195 degrees.  Boat speed still very good.

Tuesday 8AM.  We had a good run overnight but with the sunrise the wind went back to ENE and dropped.   Our boat speed is hovering around 7 knots.  I kicked off my sheet last night and it’s already too warm to sit in the cockpit except in shorts.  I’ll try to remember being this warm in the morning in a few weeks time.

Weather forecast is not great.  Not a lot of wind for the next 36 hours and we’re heading towards “Thundery Squalls with violent gusts.”

Steve was hit on the face by a flying fish last night. He moved and another one landed just where he’d been sitting.  In addition to flying fish there were several calamari on board this morning.  The dolphins came back on all sides of the boat 200 meters out. We must be the only game in town.  There hasn’t been any sign of any shipping whatsoever since we left Mindelo.

We’ve put up the ParaSail spinnaker and are doing marginally better boat speed.    This sail is meant to fly without the main but it’s just not big enough.  With Spinnaker only we are slower than with main and poled out Genoa. So we have to use the main as well.  I think I have been sold a very expensive undersized sail.  We were originally offered a trial sail in Antibes with the same size as we now have.  The sail they sent was not the same size but two sizes smaller so the trial sail was a bit of a joke.  The Salesperson assured me that we needed this size 14 and I went along with it.  Expensive mistake.

Noon 4/12/07 Our 20 hour run from departure yields 162 miles and  just over an 8 knot average.  I will do noon to noon distances run for the rest of the trip.