ARC+ 2021 Cape Verde - Day 4 (11 Nov)
Walkabout has gone Sailing
Andrew and Traci Roantree
Thu 11 Nov 2021 13:00
Where do the days go?
Highlights from the last 24hrs have been a surprise really! Experiencing the gifts that darkness offers like the clarity of the millions of stars in the sky, the inky black water bursting with phosphorescence and watching it fade away, consuming even more fruit and a little housekeeping.
The glow at night from watching the phosphorescence as it jumps about in Walkabout’s wake has been mesmerising! I tried to take a photo to show you but the mobile just wasn’t up to the job.
It’s there too when you flush the loo, it jumps around the bowl before leaving the boat.
You can loose yourself in the night sky on this big blue ocean! So many stars and with the app ‘SkyView’ you can fully explore the sky which is great for someone with little knowledge apart from the well known constellations like Orion below.
Night shifts have moved from being a chore getting us through the night safely to a time of learning about the sky, listening to those podcasts you never had time to listen to and having some very important time to yourself.
I think that is because we have moved into a routine and our body clocks are more in tune with a change in our sleeping habits. The sad thing is that we’ll have to go through all this again once we leave Cape Verde for Grenada! Hay Ho.
No fish were landed yesterday and we had to cut the line and lost both a new lure and new paravane. We may need to take some advice on how to handle and manage the fishing rod before trying again! A job while in CV.
Food is a big part of the day and at the moment we are eating fruit in many forms pretty much continuously! I now know that I massively over ordered and to avoid throwing it overboard for the fish, we are devouring more fruit than we ever have! On our breakfast Bircher, eleven’s and again after lunch of wraps with Greek salad then again late afternoon and for desert. Oh, and not to forget we much on fruit during our night shifts - having a quota each to get through!!
Pineapples are the next fruit treat on the menu!
It’s a lovely calm, reasonably flat sea today, the sun is out so we upped and showered this morning, went to put the generator on as we had to use the auto-helm overnight as the self-steering hydrovane wasn’t able to keep a reasonable course due to the fact we were probably slightly over-powered by the mainsail but we needed it up to keep some speed. Once started, the generator stopped after a few minutes with the same fault message reading -high exhaust temperature!
Having failed to solve the fault, we emailed our shore-side contact Richard to speak to SMS for advice and hope we can sort it out once we arrive in CV. It’s probably the impeller which I know will be a tricky job as the space and access around the generator is minimal.
A job on arrival in CV!
In the meantime, we have had to use the engine to recharge the batteries! Not ideal and something we hope can be fixed before we leave on our 15-17 day passage to Grenada!
Our G1 sail has been up most of today with the mainsail due to very light winds. We are making 5knots which is reasonable but have been as slow as 3.9 knots! Many other boats are in the same position with many having different sail plans and set ups.
It’s not a race but we do hope to arrive at least in the upper mid-pack of our division - fingers crossed!
It’s incredible to walk up to the bow (front of the boat) and look out ahead to this huge expanse of water! We are still 267 nautical miles from Cape Verde, that’s like two and half times across the English Channel!!
One last thing before I sign off, sea salt! OMG!!! It is everywhere!!! And it’s big crystals like you find in your salt grinder at home.
This is a picture of one of the forward hatches - you can see it’s covered in salt.
Water is very scarce in CV with an allowance of water for each boat on arrival, after that you have to pay for it so I can’t see us washing the boat down with a hose until we are in Grenada maybe.
Another awesome day on the big blue of the Atlantic! It’s living up to be everything we dreamed of.
135 nautical miles covered in the last 24 hrs 1300 to 1300 on 11 November. The record breaking days are over, as we try to eek out every bit of boat speed from very little wind.