Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Passage to Mindelo: Day 7

The stats for day 7 are the same as day 6: 133.2 miles, 5.55 knots average. Maybe that's because we had the same light wind conditions and motor-sailed almost the whole time. When we use the SSB radio, we have to turn the engine off, but then our speed has been less than 4 knots, not good enough to get to Mindelo before dark tomorrow, so we turn the engine back on. (Now on day 8 we finally have enough wind to keep the engine off again.)

Besides checking in with Herb for weather in the evening, we use the SSB to check in with the Rum Runners Net, an informal radio network of English-speaking cruisers crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean. Our friends on Orinoco and Aquila are on the net, and that's how we keep up with them. We've also met a couple of the other boats but really haven't gotten acquainted yet. One boat, Stardust, is from Portland. They're circumnavigating but didn't seem too interested in getting to know us since they're cruising with people they've known for many miles now.

One difference today was that the dolphins were back. I'm pretty sure they were different ones because I think I'd recognize the wounds on one from the other day.

All is well aboard Solstice, but we're definitely looking forward to landfall tomorrow--on the solstice--and catching up with friends on Orinoco, Aquila, and Avocette, who is arriving on the 22nd.

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1 comment:

peregrins2 said...

Congrats on arrival! Glad your SSB is working fair, it's always a crap shoot with those things. We always had to shut down the engine and the inverter (and if you have a DC fridge, that too).

We met Becky of Stardust in Greece but they went to Tunisia for the winter and we crossed. Her group split into 2, one that stayed in the Med and one that left so we tagged onto the "left" group. I forget the names they came up with for the groups but we were in the "MadLantic" set.