Author: Bernd Page 90 of 122
…unless you are mentally strong with a good balance and solid mind.
While reading this book, you will ask yourself if you read the current news or a historical novel between 1933 and 2015. It is very hard to differentiate as most of the story lines are simply happening right now, again, very sad. Literally speaking, a partly repeat of our history. In 2022 we are basically set back to 1933.
No doubt, a brilliant book of contemporary literature, present and unfortunately prevailing.
Highly recommended.
A nice shot taken by Bjarne Tveitan during the chaotic moments we had. I wanted to say “Thank you“ to all the help and sympathy received to prevent the worse to happen.
With further help and advice from good fellow friends and sailors we are now preparing to get the lady into a nearby beauty farm to repair the cosmetic scratches suffered from this nasty incident. All going well we shall be able to show up in any beauty contest again from May onwards.
Overall we were extremely fortunate that things did not turn out worse.
Fair winds…
The storm was forecasted 25kts up to 40kts in gusts. The wind picked up from 8am onwards and I had multiple lines out in all directions – more than usual. What does it help, if the outriggers on the pontoon break off and the whole boat swings around breaking a second outrigger off until we stop alongside the pontoon. A nasty situation with the outriggers scratching the hull… My emergency call to the marina office was responded and help with many fellow boaters around organised. Thank you! I will now assess the damage and revise the plan again. Fair winds…still puzzled.
I met Didier the other day when I saw a tiny little boat at the end of our pontoon here in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Walked over trying to eliminate my suspicion and in fact it turned opposite – my suspicion substantiated while listening to his story.
Didier had finally thrown the lines but by chance he turned up in Las Galletas, where we met him again while visiting our friend Rainer from SY Geronimo. The trip over there took him almost 24 hours and he decided for another stop in the South of Tenerife to wait for more favourable weather before heading over to New York/United States.
It is a crazy adventure and hard to imagine for an outsider what it means to cross the Atlantic Ocean in such a tiny little paddling boat.
I love Didier’s paintings!
Fair winds…& Bon voyage Didier !
It was getting late last night but fascination and excitement took over having some very nice QSOs around the world. A snapshot from the HAM Logbook:
2200 UTC, 7163kHz, LSB:
– DL7MDB / Stefan / Madeira 
– DL7MEF / Franz / Augsburg 
– KE1Y / Rolf / New Hamshire 
– HK3JCL / Lothar / Colombia 
2300 UTC / 14162 / USB:
– V3CWB / Mike / Victoria 🇦🇺
– K2UQT / Tom / New York 🇺🇸
Although the propagation forecast was not that promising for these connections it worked surprisingly very well. On the 40m band (7MHz) I took little help of WebSDR Lisbon but the 20m band (14MHz) was extremely clear in both directions, Victoria/Australia and New York/United States. I was literally speaking sitting in the middle of Mike and Tom but that is perhaps a matter of perspective. 😅 Nevertheless I got R5 and S7 reports from both of them. R5 stands for “Readability”and means “Perfectly readable”and S7 stands for “Strength”and confirms that my signal was received “Moderately strong”.
Stefan came in with R5 and S9. Being based in Santa Cruz on Madeira, it was a nice coincident to connect the two Santa Cruz between Portugal and Spain. The connection was loud and clear at both ends, which surprised me as I am hiding behind some 900m high mountains towards the direction of Madeira. Perhaps the signal travelled the long way…who knows?!? 🤔
The testing will continue.
Fair winds…
