Where is Doris?...

Monday 13 October 2008

Sines (3)

After waking up we (Dave, Niels, Bruce and I) went into town for a bite to eat and to draw some money out from the cash point machine. I took my laptop and managed to get a brief connection to check the weather gribs and email etc (but not enough time to post to the blog – sorry people).

On our return Dave and I went snorkelling and took along ‘the Bitch’ our new name for the spear gun. It’s harder than it looks and never managed to hit anything! To be honest we wasn’t in the water that long as it was freezing and I found myself biting on the snorkel while shivering.

Back at the boat it was time to get the genoa down and put the jib back in place for the planned trip to Madeira on Tuesday. If the weather looks good for a minimum of five days I will go for it. I have to say that I am slightly nervous as this will be my longest crossing (460 nm) of around five days and completely alone.

In the meantime I have to ensure my insurance is covering me and purchase some spare water containers just in case I lose the main water tank due to some unforeseen leakage.

I plan to set sail early Tuesday morning and put as much distance between me and the land during daylight to allow me to relax more offshore. The crux of this trip will be sleep management as cat naps of 15 minutes will not get me through five days and longer spells (a minimum of 90 minutes) will be required – the kitchen timer only goes up to 60 minutes). First stop will be Porto Santo, the smaller of the two islands before making my way onwards to the main larger island.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Get yourself a proper egg timer you pikey ;o)