For most of the day we had a nice sailing wind. Not as fast as in the morning but still ok. A bunch of activities of things were done. But there was also time to relax.

Just when G got his next delicious dinner on the table, the wind started changing directions and force. It seems that the offering B gave to Rasmus, the god of the seas, did not satisfy him yesterday.

We furled the genoa, fixed the main sail in center position, started the engines, and enjoyed G’s menu of the day.

A bit after dinner the wind stablized in direction. Not very strong but enough to sail with an AWA of about 130 deg and heading SE. Of it stays like this until the new year wind starts blowing we will be very happy.

Now, G is with A on cockpit, R writes these lines on the salon sofa before he falls asleep…

After a bigger part of the night running with only the genoa for safety reasons going speeds of around 3 knots, we hoisted the main with reef 1….
…. and MaRe runs around 8 kn at 60 deg AWA and around 14 kn TWS. A NW swell of more than 100 m length and a hight of mostly likely a bit more than 2 m lifts MaRe gently up. Sometimes it creates a comfortable feeling in the stomach. But she also shakes bit in the wind waves coming ESE where the wind builds up another swell. This easterly swell should accompany us from tomorrow on when we are south of the windless high pressure area.

Breakfast was great, like everyday. Lots of talk, jokes and laughter. Today we had additionally a shy guest. A seagull came twice close by looked at us, regarded us in her own way and decided not to join us for breakfast.

A great start into day 3. Let’s see what’s coming up.

Running with engines and the genoa to provide a like bit more pull. But the AWS (apparent wind speed) is below 10 kn. The effect is there but not enough to only sail.
It’s a nice wind for a gennaker, but for security reasons, we don’t fly the gennaker at night. Hope for better wind is always on board. Let’s keep fingers crossed that we stay in the corridor, which has some wind until we reach the next WPT, about 250 nm NW of the Cape Verde islands.

In the afternoon, a group of dolphins came from starboard towards MaRe and played for a quarter of an hour around MaRe’s bows. These animals are fascinating.

About one and half an hour ago we put the gennaker down. Not even for that sail we had
enough wind. Running with the engines we go more S hoping to stay in the small corridor which provides wind for the night and tomorrow.
For the night we will only use the genoa to get a bit more speed. For sailing with main and genoa b the wind is too weak.

G is “torturing” the whole crew with the excellent smell of catch of the day currently getting hot in the frying pan. Why does it still take more time until we can enjoy the delicious meal.

In the meantime we had a gorgeous dinner. Fried dolphinfsh, potato salad and a green salad. G please keep going like that¡

G caught a dolphinfish (this is NOT a dolphin!!! A Goldmakrele, mahi mahi) of a bit less then 10 kg. G was trolling about an hour with a boat speed of about 5 kn.
As G is a great cook, we all look forward to tonight’s dinner.

Night was very quiet. Not much wind, low swell. With daylight we pulled the genoa out, stopped the engines but still made 2 kn and had a nice sunny breakfast. Then we pulled out the gennaker and made almost 9 kn with AWA of 80 deg. To reduce the pressure on the starboard hull, we changed course more to W. And then we started using the flow generator and got about 4 – 7 A and charge overall the batteries with up to almost 3 A. Great!
G is working on the fishing rod… Fish dinner tonight!

We departed today from Las Palmas about 1600. Wind with F3 on the nose. Later F2 – 1. Glassy sea. About 1m of swell from different directions.
The sailing cook or cooking sailor made out first dinner en-route to Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten. Needles to say it was delicious!
Right now we are running with our engines and expect that this will continue until at least tomorrow afternoon. Hope that the weather forecast is wrong and we get a good sailing wind earlier.

Departure preparations got very intense. All crew members are on board; it’s a very strong crew.. several tasks are tracked in parallel, thus prices is good. Today, the first large volume of food arrived and is stored. In the next 2 days, the last 2 days, it will continue like this. Assuming the wind fits somehow, we will depart on 29th.

As there was no good wind around for a few days – we even had glassy sea – and yesterday all day long rain, we stay here in the harbor area at anchor doing boat jobs, and look for interesting historic places at GC. Thus we also visited the ” House of Columbus”, traveled by car through the mountains and above the clouds and will do more of this.

A place in the marina is like playing in a lottery. The ARC pandemic continues to degrade all non-ARC sailors to a lower level until mid January.

Please, can someone develop a vaccine against the pandemic?!

Had no wind start at the anchorage this morning. Made it easy. Almost no wind for while. Comfortable breakfast.

When I finally, close to Punta de Maspalomas, came fully out of the lee of GC, I got 5 Bft from ENE. MaRe’s wind!

Main at reef 1, Genoa full, and the small storm jib. Storm jib for easy tacking, less weather helm, and about 5 and a bit deg higher up in the wind.

Sailing 50 – 40 deg up into the wind, MaRe still runs around 7 – 9 kn at 19 – 23 kn
AWS.