Day 13 - Canaries-Martinique

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 Friday 21st Nov '25

I thought today would be another "ground hog day" but I was wrong -

Started with the wind dying off to a sniffle and our speed dropping down to a sedate low 5kt range. 
We have motor sailed most of the way across so have used up a reasonable amount of fuel so I am now monitoring how much we are using to make sure we don't run out before we get there.  

For those interested in the numbers  - the boat comes with 2 fuel tanks of 600lts each and we have 31 x 20lt jerry cans so we had a total of 1,820lts of fuel, thast a lot for a sail boat!  Running 1 engine at a time at 1850rpm (5-6kts) we burn about 4lt per hour and the 17kw generator burns about the same but we only run that when we use the washing machine or water maker which is every 3 days using 15lts per wash/water making.  As of today we have about 200lts left in each tank and all the jerry cans are still full giving a total of around 1,000lts.  I always like to try and calculate arrival at the destination with 10-20 of fuel remaining.  With all these numbers plus the distance left to the destination I can do the calculation and figure out if we need to conserve fuel or if we can speed up a little bit more, and I do this multiple times a day.

Sorry if that was a bit boring for some!   


During the day we noticed there was a reasonable amount of seaweed floating past and when we saw clumps of it it seemed to be in a line like it was all being blown or drifted in the same direction.  It's called Sargassum seaweed.  I took a photo out of my cabin window of a couple of pieces passing but there were a lot of big clumps of the stuff drifting passed all day.

Makes for a very interesting read if you Google it.


  

1st ship  have sIeen in days.  The MY Lama came within 1.5nm of us apparently on it's way to a port in Sudan. 



Then to top off the day we were exactly halfway between Cape Verde and Martinique 1,050 in either direction which calls for a celebration. which we did in the good 'ol sailors tradition by the 3 of us having a tot of rum each and pouring a tot over the side for Neptune to thank him for keeping us safe.  






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