Gwendoline - 11th ,12th and 13th day at sea

S/Y Gwendoline M - Atlanterhavskryds
03. December. 12.15 UTC.
On bord Lene, Bente, Annette, Maiken, Oliver, Orla og Kim
Position: 15.56.76N 26.33.21W

Finally we got the wind to leave Cap Verde again. We "landed" tuesday Nov 29th at 13.30 on the Cabo Verde island Sao Vincente. When entering the harbour towards Marina Mindelo, somebody called us on the VHF. It was Jonas from the sailing yacht "Gorm Den Gamle", who via MArinetraffic had gotten notified that we were on the way. Freja - another danish sailing yacht was also in the marina. What a delightful surprice once again to say hello to Joinas, Maja, Alva, Karl Holger and Sifrine from "GBorm Den Gamle" and Anders + wife and kids Anna, Victor and Ludvig from "Freja".

We aimed directly towards the fuel station when entering the marina, bunkered 220 liters of diesel fuel and went on to a slip right next to "Gorm Den Gamle".

When they heard that we wanted to go to a restaurant that night, they recommended a hotel restaurant they had visited earlier that week.

Arriving at the recommended the same evening we were transported 200 years back in time - to Colonial time - where only the rich and famous went out for dinner. We came into a room with 6 meters to the sealing, 1.5 meter high carved wodden panels decorating all the walls, silk draping's overhanging all the windows, fully set tables with eye hurting white cloth and dinner settings with 3 glas, 3 sets of utensils and plates placed upside down.

The waiter, very discrete, received our orders, went to a small opening in the wall and placed the ticket with the order. He then knocked with a wooden stick on another piece of wood - tree times.

Shortly after, we heard tree knocks at the wall opening and the waiter fetched our drinks. After a while, we again heard tree knocks, and the waiter fetched our food of plenty through the same hole in the wall. We were unable to finish our food - that's how much food we got - and all this for just 11 euro per person.

On our way to Capo Verde - we had some problems charging our batteries. It took us tree days t ofind the root cause - which was a loose collective negative for all the battery banks.

Finally we were ready to continue our voyage to St. Lucia. We went out by engine - and sailed the first tree NM before we got out into the wind. We were totally unprepared for what happened next. As we were setting the butterfly rig - two head sails poled out, and the main in the middle for stability - the wind slowly became stronger and stronger. Before we knew it - we has winds exceeding 32 knots. We got caught in the wind acceleration zone between the two islands, and we had to reduce our sails rather fast. Doing this - the "pull back line" for the smaller roller furling genoa became undone.

Fortunately Oliver saw this - and in a jiffy - he had secured the roller with an extra line. He then fixed the pull back line - and away we went - logging 8 knots. 3-4 NM further out - the wind became more manageable - with 14-16 knots - we were outside the wind acceleration zone.

We have now been sailing for almost 24 hours and we are doing a very good speed - 6-7 knots with approximately 20 knots wind. It also looks like everybody has kept their "sea-legs" as no one has been seasick yet.

Over and Out from
S/Y Gwendoline M
Atlanten