Friday 5th September.
Nuts has been loaded up and ready to go for several days now but weather not co-operating.
There is a big depression passing by the Azores at the moment and if I had left a few days ago it would have clobbered me. Im sure I would have survived but why put it to the test!
According to Windy the depressions for the next week plus should be passing a bit further to the north and give me some more favorable winds. I dont trust long range weather forecasts (especially at this time of year) and must take what comes but not prudent to head off into gale force winds within the first few days.
Im hoping to head off on Saturday afternoon to get behind the depression and give it a few hours after the front passes and rain and sea calm down a bit.
My plan is to go between Pico and Sao Jorge as the wind will be from the North by then and seas should be calming down to 2m or so for the first night with protection from Sao Jorge. After exiting the channel the wind is forecast to go towards the NNE which will be on the nose for a day or so as Im planning to get up to about 40N (at least) for the crossing and drop down when getting close to Lisbon. After that the long range weather forecast looks OK. (changes every time I look so decided to stop looking while it is good!!)
Nuts waterline has gone down a lot. All loaded with food for about 2 months and 92 l of water plus juices, UHT milk, lots of snacks, books, fishing tackle, inflatable canoe, snorkel gear etc etc.
Going to bite the bullet tonight and activate the Starlink Mini for offshore use. Only for 1 month and straight back back to standby mode. (Got to spend all my money before it is finished!!) For this trip at this time of year in the North Atlantic I think it is important to monitor weather and my major concern is the Orca situation as I approach the Portuguese coast. If they are active in the area where I want to go I will turn around and head elsewhere. (that is why I have lots of food and water onboard).
Info on Starlink Mini.
There was a discount offer on the Portuguese Starlink site for half price on the mini a while ago. I paid 150E and it took almost 2 months to arrive in the Azores. It came on the 50Gb roam package (40E/month) which I was supposed to activate 1 month after they posted it to me. It had not arrived by that time so I put it on the "pause" program which was free but no service. That program has been discontinued and now there is the "Standby" program. It costs 5E per month with unlimited data at reduced speed. I tested it out and it works just fine for WhatsApp Calls but a bit pixilated for video. Could stream radio no problem and emails were fine. Took a bit of time to send and download photos. You Tube also worked OK with a bit of buffering. Another thing to watch for is your power supply. It is supposed to work on 12vdc but the cable supplied is very long and thin gauge. (The supplied power adapter is 230ac to36vdc) I bought a 12v to 24v step up converter and chopped the cable to about 4m to reduce voltage drop. Draw from the ships battery starts at about 3A and drops to about 2 once connected. My battery voltage averages 13.2v so you can work out the watts.
I hope it all works out OK. So far my AIS has been transmitting nonstop for weeks so that problem has been resolved.
Some of my dehydrated meals. Sometimes the plastic vacuum seal bags would get punctured by the dehydrated contents which are quite hard and sharp so we now we make bags from baking parchment paper to put inside the plastic bags before loading and vacuum sealing. That protects the bags from sharp bits.
Water is in plastic bottles - 2l, 1.75l, 1.5l, 1l and 500mL. Also have filled all available space in lockers with secure lids with empty sealed bottles and small polystyrene bean bags stuffed into corners for added buoyancy. Garmin tracker will be on (hopefully with a link on the blog) as soon as I leave and daily video updates if Starlink works out and weather is not trashing me.
Nice to see other SAC skippers getting their qualifying sails under the belt.
Time is getting close and must get away from the Azores as soon as possible as autumn weather and storms are on their way and the North Atlantic is maybe not such a good place for a 5m boat to hang around.
Been following Rajmund on his qualifying sail. He is doing very well and sailing super fast. https://setkahorhe.blogspot.com/
With a bit of luck will do an update from the sea tomorrow.