Okay-lah…to speak in the slang of my Asian friends…this photo flavours an interesting and perhaps frowning welcome here in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Not sure how google is going to translate that sentence. You find out. 😅
Anyway, following a warm welcome with Jutta and Willi over a cold “Einlaufbier” my busy schedule included the engine oil change upon arrival and its completion before sunset. It was tight and cleaning the mess needs to wait until tomorrow.
Good night & fair winds…
The wind died not in line with the weather forecast but so be it. Apart from the fast speed ferries between the two major cities on these islands, there was one fishing boat and that’s it.
One of my trials during this trip was also to attach small tiny little photos to the logblog entries to make them more fashionable. It all depends on the Pactor connnection you can catch at a certain time from a certain location but in principal it works. There is a limitation of 180kb per mail in order not to jam the frequencies.
Tenerife is now coming up in the mist, another 8 nautical miles ahead of us and I better stop now and take sharp lookup to prepare for landfall.
Jutta and Willi from SY Leonie are expecting me as per my ETA announced.
Fair winds…
We are approaching the TSS between Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Not much traffic though and in about 4 hours we should reach our destination for the day. The weather is beautiful, some wind for motorsail but no jet effect so far. These jet effects, also called acceleration zones, are famous for 30kn winds out of nothing. You can first see them coming on the water surface before they hit you shortly after. At least these are sailor´s fairytailes spreading around but I cannot judge from own experience. For sure they exists. We have got changing conditions between 3 to 15kn wind, mainly from SE direction but it shall change after lunch to a more nothern direction. The ocean is taking some long breath today. 2.5m wave height at a period of more than 15 seconds. This long atlantic swell is fantastic. Sometimes you feel like sitting on a rooftop bar watching down into big dales.
A lot of HAM activities during the passage. Obviously I did another test on the equipment and the result was very positive. I believe the additional counterpoise put in place together with Lothar/EA8DES has a positive impact on the overall installation. I could talk to Uwe/DF5AM, fellow sailor Ralf/DM3RH/mm from SY malwieder, Uwe/DD1HUR/mm on his boat in Torreveija, etc.
Together with Lothar I am also exploring the HF Chat Funktion, which can be very usefull providing reliable connnections under difficult atmospheric conditions. It is basically a SMS Chat for HAM boys and girls but works via HF worldwide not depending on any telco sim card or wifi network.
Time for another cup of tea now.
Fair winds…
Following the Intermar e.V. morning net yesterday, Uwe/DF5AM, Lothar/EA8DES and myself agreed for a test connection from Gran Canaria to Lanzarote. Silvia/DM1SIL also joined from the south of Fuerteventura.
I did run the calculation with VOACAP and a snapshot of the results can be seen in the picture below. It basically provides you with the best frequency to be used at a given date/time for the distance you want to cover. We agreed to try 7195kHz as we had a high probability that this should work.
It worked in one direction. Both Silvia and Uwe could hear me very well with a strong signal but vice versa was just noise and I could not hear anything.
This result is not a surprise as experience shows that receiving while at berth in a crowded marina is hard. There are too many sailing masts absorbing the incoming signal. We agreed to run another test at the time we are out on the ocean again.
As a HAM radio operator on High Frequencies (HF = 3 – 30MHz) you depend on these external factors and the challenge is to “cooperate” with the propagation conditions of electromagnetic waves influenced by many factors.
Fair winds…
I like Las Palmas. The city is average – below average for biking – but it offers all you need and good friendship among fellow sailors as this is probably the main starting point to go West. The scenery is divers, from beach to commercial harbour, from high-rise to local fishermen, etc. 🧐
Fair winds…
As a HAM radio operator there is always something you try to enhance on your installation to improve connectivity. SSB antenna grounding on a sailboat is a science in itself, especially on a hull made out of GRP like ours.
Although the actual radio installation worked fairly well so far, I am up for even better results. Lothar and myself installed today 3.7 sqm of aluminum foil and testing is on its way.
Fair winds…
SY Geronimo will throw the lines on Tuesday to rock the Canary Islands for a week plus. There is little these four sailors have not faced on the ocean yet but any sail will bring a new adventure. I am sure they will have great fun out there.
Although invited to join, I will stay back in Las Palmas to keep going with my boat work and prepare for my departure on Friday.
Fair winds…
As Calima is considered “over” and the wind has calmed down after 7 days unusual strong from South to Southeast direction and constantly between 20 and 30kts it was time for cleaning day!
Teamwork! We rinsed both masts very thoroughly from top to bottom and while Rainer offered to get up on both masts, it was me operating the lines from the deck. I missed the view from the top but was quite happy that Rainer offered his help.
The dinner is on me tonight, three courses…😅
Fair winds…
PS: Tomorrow the cleaning goes on, not all done yet. Also more boat work over the next few days to keep the lady in good shape. 😉
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