Morning all,
Finally back in the office after a hectic few days but finally unchained myself from my desk and got some decent time at sea for the first time this year. Went down to Gib on Saturday morning with my colleague, checked over a Princess 22 metre and got ourselves shipshape, provisioned up and then off to fuel quay, filled her up (20p a litre!) but with typical Gibraltarian effeciency we didn't get away until Five thirty.
Rounded Europa point at six with a lttle chop and breeze (F3-4) and were escorted for the first few hours by several large schools of dolphins, the wind slowly died away and we were making a comfortable 21 knots (I wanted to get clear of the straights before dark). As night fell we had a full moon and glassy seas so as we were running ahead of a possibly nasty low I decided to get some miles under our belts and took the decision to run through the night at 16 knots, which is more than I usually cruise at for night passages but the thought of coming off the plane and sitting at 10 knots was not appealing.
Cut right through the middle of a carrier battle fleet at around ten thirty, we counted about thirty large ships on radar, lots of jets buzzing around and a helo came to ahve a close look at us, the Americans who seemed to be in charge, were constantly calling up other boats (some fairly close to us ) and insisting they alter course to avoid certain ships but would not answer me when I repaetedly called them up to see if were we O.K. to stick to our course, so we just carried on.
Went to get some sleep at eleven and then back on watch at 0300, still making excellent progress and a superb sunrise accomponied by bacon and eggs, really was great to be offshore again. Fairly uneventful day apart from having to transfer the 1200 extra litres of fuel from the transom garage to the main tanks which took time as the first transfer pump would not prime whatever I tried and the second burnt out some wiring so I had to rewire/bodge it (thanks Sheppards and co.!).
Arrived in Ibiza channel at 1300 running very low on gas after pushing so hard, so we needed a top up but got siestaed and had to wait until 1600, took on 2500 litres and were off again by 1645 for a final 72 mile blast back to Mallorca, great weather was still holding so did the last leg at 26/27 knots, tied up in Palma at 2030, 475 miles in just over 24 hours including fueling, up am sitting here tired, sunburnt but much happier.
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Finally back in the office after a hectic few days but finally unchained myself from my desk and got some decent time at sea for the first time this year. Went down to Gib on Saturday morning with my colleague, checked over a Princess 22 metre and got ourselves shipshape, provisioned up and then off to fuel quay, filled her up (20p a litre!) but with typical Gibraltarian effeciency we didn't get away until Five thirty.
Rounded Europa point at six with a lttle chop and breeze (F3-4) and were escorted for the first few hours by several large schools of dolphins, the wind slowly died away and we were making a comfortable 21 knots (I wanted to get clear of the straights before dark). As night fell we had a full moon and glassy seas so as we were running ahead of a possibly nasty low I decided to get some miles under our belts and took the decision to run through the night at 16 knots, which is more than I usually cruise at for night passages but the thought of coming off the plane and sitting at 10 knots was not appealing.
Cut right through the middle of a carrier battle fleet at around ten thirty, we counted about thirty large ships on radar, lots of jets buzzing around and a helo came to ahve a close look at us, the Americans who seemed to be in charge, were constantly calling up other boats (some fairly close to us ) and insisting they alter course to avoid certain ships but would not answer me when I repaetedly called them up to see if were we O.K. to stick to our course, so we just carried on.
Went to get some sleep at eleven and then back on watch at 0300, still making excellent progress and a superb sunrise accomponied by bacon and eggs, really was great to be offshore again. Fairly uneventful day apart from having to transfer the 1200 extra litres of fuel from the transom garage to the main tanks which took time as the first transfer pump would not prime whatever I tried and the second burnt out some wiring so I had to rewire/bodge it (thanks Sheppards and co.!).
Arrived in Ibiza channel at 1300 running very low on gas after pushing so hard, so we needed a top up but got siestaed and had to wait until 1600, took on 2500 litres and were off again by 1645 for a final 72 mile blast back to Mallorca, great weather was still holding so did the last leg at 26/27 knots, tied up in Palma at 2030, 475 miles in just over 24 hours including fueling, up am sitting here tired, sunburnt but much happier.
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