Beetle - Beetle - day 4

Well, Well, Well

The first 2 days we were cruising at hull speed. Yesterday the wind went SW. Because of small but steep waves, it was not possible to go too close to the wind. Still we were pounding the waves making progress at 6,5 knots 190 magnetic. We had not done any pounding since the English Channel. By evening time the coarse was about 150-160 degrees, not really what we wanted. The forecast was for the wind to turn to SW-W.
We had no patience for that, so we tacked to 260 degrees and set the autopilot on apparant wind angle 42 degrees on port tack. Unfortunately and since we are lightly crewed, Skipper being tired and only checked trafficking and also missed the alarm 3 hours later realized that the wind eventually had turned west and Beetle was heading course 005 degrees !!!

Skipper immediately tacked only to realize that the wind had dropped and we were doing less than 3 knots.

Unfortunately Skipper made red crosses on the chart - so the little detour is visible. They will be erased when we enter next noon position 281200.

Anyway, the sun is shining. We took advantage of the settled conditions and made scrambled eggs, sausages and baked beans. We had a single dolphin visiting close up for a few minutes.

We are glad we bought the 5 pieces of 30L cans from one of the boats on pontoon T. We filled 156 liters of diesel in them - and they gave Skipper long arms carring them along the pontoon two at the time.

We are awaiting noon positions to see were S/Y Manali and Heart of Gold is. The first continued SE in the evening. The second sailed a NW course. At about 4 am we were sailing 225 degrees under sail and saw Heart of Gold on AIS doing the same course and speed about 9 miles on our starboard side.

At 8 am we saw a boat under sail patiently doing about 1-2 knots. She was not on AIS. No boats in site currently neither visible or on AIS.

All well on board.

Beetle

N23.20, W23.12