Leaving Cartagena soon.
PS: PS: Coke needs to be fresh too
Leaving Cartagena soon.
PS: PS: Coke needs to be fresh too
Having night watch. It’s after midnight
It’s May 20 0340h UTC and I am writing a blog text. I wonder, being tired, how much this helps my grammar – let’s see 🙂
May 19, around noon we left our Marina berth for the fuel dock. We needed 380 liters of diesel to fill the tanks.

The whole morning we prepared the boat for the trip. Getting LUNARA seaworthy is always more work then we think. The prior day, being out of the boatyard and back in the water, was filled with all the tasks you cannot do when out of the water. Testing the generator, adjusting idle rpm of the diesel engines, watermaker maintenance and washing the dirt and dust of the boat-yard off and many other chores. We maintain todo lists to keep up with all the stuff.

Around 14:30 we motored out of the harbor and set sails soon. With decent wind we sailed southwest with 6 knots. Between 1700h and 1800h UTC the wind died and we had to motor. On long distances we go into fuel saver mode which is running only one diesel at 1850 rpm. That’s typically good for 6 knots. Not today as we are heading into a short wave “thshhhh bang” every 6 seconds. We barely make 5 knots.

Late afternoon we had a wonderful first. A pod of pilot whales visited us. Families with kids so to speak. They swam under the boat and appear a more shy species then dolphins – not so easy to photograph as Flipper was. (We think they were Pilot whales. If anyone knows better please let us know in the comment section)



Little duties continue while underway. We changed from our winter storm damaged flag to the official summer flag:



It’s 0412h UTC now and the sky begins to brighten in the East from the soon rising sun.
I have to pay attention to other things now. I am logging out.
Bye, bye
We arrived in Sines On Tuesday night at 2am. We sailed 540nm with unusual winds from the northwest. Year-round this region of the Atlantic has northeasterly winds which would have meant to sail upwind.
We were really lucky with the weather as we could successfully detour a strong cold-front on our trip from Madeira to Portugal. PredictWind, our subscription based weather guidance, helped a lot to find the best route.

Enroute from Madeira to Sines

Sines, Portugal. Lovely fishing village.
