Puerto Rico, Friday, 10 am

 

Starting coordinates have been fed into this Diary log and we are ready to leave from Puerto Rico in the next hour. Been two busy days to complete the final preparations, including organizing all provisions required for up to 25 days in sea and drinking water for further more 5 days (for safety). The last crew member Helena, arrived last midnight so we are now complete team

 

Last minutes preparations included, besides of the logistics, scrubbing and cleaning the yacht inside/outside, climbing the mast-top for inspection of sail hoist and furling - the salt water during last months in sea had led to more difficult reefing of the furling main sail, some spray of WD-40 oil do good. The yacht took quite a lot of beating on its journey down from Sardinia via Gibraltar, digging the bow deep into the waves, and we have been concerned about some small saline water leakage around the inlet pipes for the watermaker, which in consequence may badly influence the electric systems and put the watermaker out of function. The watermaker is crucial for comfort on board. However, with Sikaflex acrylics available from Sika it could be fixed, we hope it's resolved permanent....

 

So in the final step, by mistake, we filled 400 ltr water from the marina services into our water tanks but we learned only later that it is NOT drinking water quality, - so we decide to pump the whole lot out again into the sea, but the we experience the waterpump breaks down. No good. Fortunately, the local mechanic in town brought us (as he promised!) last night a new replacement, of course against a few hundred Euroes.

 

The logistic prior to departure, and later onboard, is a challenging task itself. All our provisions for 5 persons for up to 4 weeks must be safely stored away, no breaking eggs in rough sea. Come back to this later, maybe...

 

All for now, weather is nice, ~22 degrees, a low breeze we expect (or rather hope) to find once we get out in open sea but first we must tank 500 ltr diesel on our way out of the harbor marina...  We will most likely use lots of it the first 2-3 days until we reach further south, heading for the north-east trade wind. Introduction of the crew later, but you have perhaps by now already guessed that we are 4 well grown-up boys and 1 lady onboard !