On the way to the Saintes

The anchorage in Portsmouth was really nice and well protected. The wind dies down to 0-1 knot and so the night was almost too hot.
Lani woke up at 5!!!! and so we raised anchor at 5.30 and left for the Saintes during Sunrise. So again we have to use the engine today running one at 2500rpm. Since we have more engine hours on the left engine (to heat water for Lani) we are now using the starboard (right) engine. It will consume around 2,5liter of diesel per hour.

When sending emails via HF SSB radio i noticed again that the watermaker is disturbing transmission. So if signals are weak i have to turn the watermaker off. Now, since we are alone again, the water consumtion went down to around 75liter per day even if we shower. When running the Spectra Ventura 200T watermaker it currently produces around 27liter of water per hour and running it for 3 hours is enough then.
Yesterday the sun was very strong and the solar panels delivered 230Ah of power. A few days ago when the sky was really clear after a rain and the rain also had washed the solar panels i saw 52A as a maximum current on the 12V side coming from the Outback Flexmate 60 charger. That was cooool.

Right now we are doing 4,4 knots but the current should soon move us faster since we left with high water. The wind is now 1 knot from behind as true wind, which makes a head wind of around 3.5knots on the anemometer as apparant wind.

The Saintes can be seen in the background and there are huge black rain clouds hovering above them. So we might get a free boat wash again :-)

I decided to take the south passage since the visibility might turn bad in heavy rain. Yes, you always have to plan ahead and be on the safe side. If it is raining extremly our radar might also be affected even when using the rain filter option.

Ok, enough bla bla for this morning....

Michael, via Pactor III EMail and the Icom 706MKIIG