Ida - Log day 3 - Hired navigator

More wind than we like for the parasailor. So we have been heading a little south.Got help with navigation from outside. Had to be paid with flying fish.Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.5a0cab43-ed97-4ddb-aa7d-80d7792bff656652598625354851345. read more...

Ida - Log day 6 - whale spotting

Thursday afternoon we were hanging around looking for dolphins in the water when we suddenly saw a couple of finns nearby. At first we thought they were dolphins. But when the creatures jumped above the water showing their backs, they were huge. Must be some kind of whales. It was amazing to see them so close. Today we've been seeing land, the Island of Santo antao, since early morning. At the time we still have 15 miles to go. The wind has declined. We are doing 5-6 knots and expect to be at the finish line around 14-15 pm.. read more...

Ida - Log day 5 - Flying fish, dolphins and managing power supply

The night between Tuesday and Wednesday we reached 430 nm from departure and were halfway to Mindelo. We took down the parasailor for a couple of hours because of increasing wind. Later, the wind stabilized and the parasailor went up again. Wednesday we had a lot of sunshine and got some power from the Solar panels. But we are still keeping an eye on power supply for navigation instruments and fridge/freezer. We still need to run the generator for some hours every day to keep up with the power demand. The spirit among the crew is good. Skipper is struggling with some headache. Other than that we are doing great. We just had pancakes with fruit for breakfast. We've been seeing Flying fish for the last couple of days. Last night we saw a group of dolphins right next to our boat. Right now. read more...

Ida - Log day 3 - great downwind sailing & black ship

Our first time participating in a rally, it was great to leave the port with so many other boats and music and people who had come by to wave and wish us a good journey. We were waving and shouting hello to the other boats we have gotten to know. With practically no wind at start, we sailed away from land by motor. When we first hit the wind, we set up the parasailor and haven't taken it down since. The first night, we were doing 8-10 knots with course directly at Mindelo. In the evening we had black ship for a few moments because we tried to cook on an induction plate. Our inverterdidn't like that and got very hot. The batteries also got drained a lot. Fortunately when we got new lithium batteries recently, we kept the old lead acid batteries. We switched power supply to the old lead. read more...