Lat N 26 11 / longitude W 028 07

Day 23
Destination?
Many wonder where in Spain we are going?
It is not yet decided where we will moor Anastasia. We are looking at
different options. It is likely that it will be in the Cadiz area or any
Marina on the southern coast.
When I sit and look at the chart around Cadiz, among other things, I see the river
Gaudalquivir with places like Seville and Cordoba. Then I think of
Red Orm, my favorite book by Frans G. Bengtsson and how Red Orm became a
galley-slave of Alemansur in Cordoba. To be a galley-slave, was no fun,
one day was ever the same so it was difficult to keep track of time.
However, he noticed three things, which showed that the time went. He was chained
to the oar as a beardless youth, and after a while his beard began to grow,
albeit it grew no longer than the oar, where it got worn away. "Of all the
ways to trim a beard, this was the worst". For my own part, I began
this journey from Rio, maybe not as a youth, but still beardless, and I
conclude it with a beard.
The other two ways that the Snake could measure the passage of time? Read the book!

Thomas

Lat N 23 56 / Long W 029 35

Day 22
Now we are on the "right" side of longitude W 30th. It's been a long and tough
struggle to get there. Not since March 28, we have been east of the line.
It's been a struggle to pass it again. Fighting the
Northeast trade wind. But this morning began with W29 59 on the GPS, and gradually convert in the right direction.
We have now got a wind that carries better towards the goal. Yeeapeee.
After three weeks under sail, you find that our focus is quite
limited. Our everyday events, which govern the whole world, or is
it not so?

Anna Karin

Lat N21 15 / long W 030 39

Day 21
The overview chart that we use now is called North Atlantic Ocean, Eastern
Part. It's the same chart we used 27 years ago when we sailed
to the Caribbean with our previous boat Aurora. We have it lying on the
chart table under the plexiglass sheet, we mark the 12-o'clock position and
sometimes we plot the low pressure tracks. When we took out the chart, I discovered
that the old plot from 1983 was visible still. I can read the dates and
positions for every day. Why I mention this is because today
we cross our own old track, then it was January 9, 1983, and today is the 5
April 2010. Then we calculated our positions with the help of the sun and
stars. Now we have 5 GPS's on board. Then we lived on 200 liters of
fresh water. Now we are producing our own new, if necessary. We had no refrigerator,
now we both fridge and freezer.
We had a good voyage then, and we have even better now.
Hooray for ocean sailing!

Anna Karin

Lat N 18 46 / long W 031 39

Day 20

Long-distance sailing calls for milestones. Previously, the equator. Beyond
that we have had "having less than 2000 NM left." It is a bit difficult to
calculate because we do not know how wide a turn we must make up towards the
Azores. Total distance could always be longer.
But we now hope that the in the next day we will reach the milestone.
2000 NM is still a long distance, for comparison, I remember
from the time when I sailed on the Mediterranean that the distance Skagen-Gibraltar
is 2000 NM and also Gibraltar Haifa.

Anna Karin

Lat N 16 05 / W 031 36

Dag 19

HAPPY EASTER from Anastasia to all blog-followers.
In a valiant attempt to convey the Easter mood, we got into a
yellow sail bag, took pictures, compressed one and sent it via satellite, up, down
to webmaster, to be able to publish the very latest
photo evidence of the two, still sailing. If you can see on our fruit net you can see it has turned all brown. We have sand from the Sahara all over the deck. Our latitude cuts through the Cape Verde archipelago.

Anna Karin

Lat N 13 29 / W 031 29

Day 18
April,April, month of fools

One of our ways to receive weather reports is Inmarsat C. Very good
addition to the GRIB files. Now we are in NAV / MET Area 2, which is
run by France. For a few days now there have been reports, but only the
first row, where the date and time is .. It has been very annoying since
we want to follow weather developments all the time. This morning I was watching
one like that, a one-line message, and came up with the idea to use the arrow keys to follow the row. Believe it or not but the whole weather report is there in only one
long, long, long list. When you select it and cut and paste into Word,
it becomes a full A 4. You can imagine how long that line is. Many thanks to
the French. International standard?

Anna Karin

Lat N 10 38 / W031 37

Day 17,
1 April, Change of plans
Since the trade winds now carry us in the direction of the West Indies,
we are going to bear up and set course for Barbados.
Carpe Diem. After the Caribbean, the Panama Canal and to the south again.
Another round, quite simply.
Is there someone who wants to come long? Submit an application, to address
mail bouy Atlantic, we will pick up the letter when we pass.

Anna Karin