Dear All.
Thank you very much for all the greetings. It’s great to hear from home, about all your plans for parties, trips and much more. We have been in a port close to Lisbon (Oeiras) for a few days. We have been sightseeing in Lisbon together with thousands of other tourists. Queues all the way. We escaped a little outside the centre, where there is an aqueduct from the 18th century. It stretches over a valley about 200 m in height and 2 km in length. Impressive structure. A highway passes under the aqueduct. The contrasts meet. We were up walking on the aqueduct and enjoyed a fantastic view. The most surprising thing, however, was to discover how small a gutter the water could run in approx. 50 cm wide and 20 cm high edges.
Now RR is in the harbour on Porto Santo, a small island NE of Madeira. We have taken the 3-day trip from Lisbon with the wind from behind. Quite a bit of rocking and rolling especially the first day when the wind was up to 14m/s and the waves quite high. All three of us were quite used. Everyone has taken their turn with lookouts in three-hour shifts. We have seen zero whales. So it was not necessary to reverse using the engine to Madeira, which we were otherwise prepared to do. In fact, there were only a few problems, such as the generator.
We have sailed by sail the entire crossing. The engine has therefore not charged the batteries. The solar panel didn’t contribute much since it was either cloudy or foggy. We run the radar at night and the autopilot uses a lot of power. We, therefore, had to run the generator once a day to charge the batteries. But the generator wouldn’t start the last few times. Jeppe thinks it is because the starter battery is not being charged by the generator. We had to start the engine first and then the generator could be started. We met very few ships. A cruise ship crossed our path at night. It shone like a Christmas tree and it was not possible to see red and green lights and therefore difficult to see when it was over. You feel quite vulnerable when you can see the ship just continuing its course straight towards you.
Cooking on board while at sea is a challenge. You must hold the pans during cooking. However, we managed to make paella in a quieter period.
Many greetings from the three Rhump Runners.
Best wishes to you all,
Kirsten