Roaring down south

Hello Friends

After spending around 5 days at Mindelo (Sao Vincente) we are on the run again. Since more then 2 days, actual we crossing the 10'th latitude. 5 more and we dive into the doldrums...

Mindelo is small african /portugese town which has a really modern and nice marina. Not that many boats there but enough to produce an ongoing traffic on the piers. A lot of german boats, lot of boats from France and a lot of boats from Switzerland (only from the french part of Switzerland :-)). However what I was recognizing once more was the fact that the most efficient way to sail is to sit in a harbor bar and talk with other sailors....unbelievable what stories you will hear in such a place. I discovered this phenomena first time when I was 17 or so and had to wait for a boat in the Azores, and therefore spent one day in the famous Cafe Peter in Horta... this have been my first let's say 15'000 offshore miles.....

The other thing I was doing in Mindelo was checking my AIS problem, finally we figured out that the light stroke damaged the existing AIS transmitting box, the diagnose tool was showing that the power inlet was somehow melted and the box had the strong opinion that she only gets between 7 and 8 Volts of power, that was the reason for the malfunction. The solution was to install a new AIS unit which is now working perfectly but only is able to receive and not to send. But anyway - better than nothing.

Since the beginning we are really roaring down south (average 24 hours runs are around 195 miles). The winds are NE'ly and decreased from 38 knots at the beginning to 22 knots right now. We do constantly surfing down the waves with around 12 to 14 knots...average speed is slightly over 8 knots. This has to do that I constantly reduce the sail plan during the night to get a quiet sleep ( remember I sleep in the bow berth - it's shaking there always like hell) but over all it's very comfortable. Btw...I was thinking how the owners of all the boats with freestanding beds are sleeping outside a harbor when the heel angle is ongoing 15 degrees or so...Maybe a question which should be answered by some sailing journalists...

It's getting wormer with every mile we travel south... right now it's around 28 degrees, humidity 73 %, water temperature around 27 degrees and air pressure 1012 hPa.

Good bye and good night from 10.51.575 N / 27.00.404 W - Markus 22.12.2016 -17.09 UTC