Voyage to Verde Islands - Day2
Stargazer of Southampton
Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)
Mon 13 Dec 2010 07:36
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14:12.10, 25:07.90N 17:19.04W
It's half past seven in the morning and the sun is
just about to rise, Adam is tucked up asleep in bed - we have been doing our
usual watches that seem to work overnight - I get to sleep from 8pm til 11pm and
2am til 5am, Adam sleeps from 11pm to 2am and 5 til 8 in the morning.
During the day we have been catching a couple of hours sleep each as well.
It is fairly dark from about half six at night to half seven in the
morning.
We're having to motor right now as there is no wind
to speak of, we had a good fast sail yesterday though until about midnight when
we slowed down, finally resorting to engine power at 5 this
morning.
We could see a few yachts still overnight -
there are a couple on the horizon behind us and a couple in front although I am
not sure who they are as we haven't spoken to anyone on the radio since the
middle of last night. Still - it is nice to see a few boats around.
Hoping that we get enough wind to sail later on in the morning. We are
trying to get 400 miles south of the canaries by Wednesday as there were some
strong SW winds forecast to come in by then although we will check the forecast
again this morning to see whether things have changed.
The weather is nice, we have escaped the thunder
and lightening that seemed to be centred around the canaries and have had
sunshine in the day and clear skies at night. Even though it is
sunny and warm with the wind yesterday I still needed my jacket and boots
on! Lots of shooting stars again last night - probably one every minute or
so on average. The moon is a half moon right now - not sure if we just
never noticed in the UK but I am sure a half moon always had the straight edge
running vertical - here the moon last night was half but the straight edge
horizonal so it looks like a smile, unfortunately the moon sets by midnight so
it is quite dark at night - but this does mean we get to see all the
phosphorescence in the water.
The AIS looks like it is working but we only seem
to pick up ships from about 3 miles away - not sure if they may have their
systems off so are not transmitting as we had a range of 6 to 10 miles up
at Las Palmas, but it could just be we need to get a better ariel. Only saw one
ship overnight and another in the very far distance during day, hoping that most
of them are running up and down a bit closer into the African
coast.
We are planning to head for the Isle of Sal in the
Verde Islands - it is the closest and has a couple of anchorages that are
supposed to be good. You can also clear into the country there but we're
hoping we don't have to as we are currently only thinking of staying a couple of
days and not getting off the boat! (although one of the anchorages is supposed
to have beautiful clear water for snorkelling so may have to give that a go -
don't know if that counts as landing on the island itself?).
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