Atlantic crossing - Update 20 november

SV SaltyPaws covered 320NM in the past 48 hours. The confirmed destination is Martinique, which is updated on the map below. 442NM to go!

Photoluminescence

Tonight we are sailing from Cartagena to Cabo Del Gata. It is a beautiful night. The weather is settled, and we are moving under sail. There are barely any waves out there. All the stars are out, in a way they could never be closer to land, where there is the perpetual light pollution. When looking at our wake, we can see tiny specs of light. The SaltyPaws is disturbing the water enough for the tiny algae to give up their light. The water needs to be moving in order to see the effect, and the first time I saw it was when we needed to re-anchor in a storm at night. The water moved sufficiently to make the lights come out. Another good spot to observe the light is when using the toilet in the dark. For the more scientifically inclined, the chemical reaction involves the oxidation of Luciferin* . While related, the name doesn't come from any devilish origins, but rather the latin 'lucifer' meaning "light bringer".

* Fancy name for a class of biological glow in the dark pigments

Crossing the 0 meridian

Way back when crossing any meridian was a Big Deal. Before people had reliable gps units, even before the gps units where made out of wood, people would tell the position of their ship using a sextant, and accurate time peace, and an almanac with the location of the heavenly bodies. Using this method, it is easy to work out longitude, by measuring the highest position it will take up during the day. For latitude however, the time piece is needed, as the only way to accurately measure latitude is to compare the 12 o'clock at Greenwich, with the local 12 O'clock. Telling time accurately was therefore a big deal, and smart people at Greenwich finally worked out how.

Not that the crew was told the positions accurately. As old superstitions still held with some of the sailors, the captain would usually report less progress than what was actually made. This way, the sailors would be less scared of falling off the earth.

The first time I crossed the 0 meridian, I was sailing from Belgium into London. Right in front of the O2 stadium, the gps reported 0.0000. Quite coincidentally, this is the closed Greenwich that you can get by boat.

This time we Crossed the 0 meridian in front of Cartagena. As the GPS did the navigating, we barely noticed.

Tux and Luna at the exact position of the 0 meridian.

Atlantic crossing - Update 18 November

See the latest maps below: another 143 NM in the last 24 hours.  Also, it is starting to look like the SaltyPaws is not aiming for St Vincent... :)

Mallorca, site of our allmost wedding

It seems ages ago now, but we went to Mallorca, so see if we wanted to get hitched. In the end we did not get hitched here, but we got very close. Now we are passing the same site, and we are reminiscing.

We almost tied the knot at this very location

In the wake of the Volvo Ocean race

On the SaltyPaws we have been closely following the Volvo Ocean race. What makes the race even more exiting, is that the first leg, follows the route of the SaltyPaws for a long time. The main differences are: SaltyPaws anchors when the wind is not favorable, or starts the engine. The other main is the coffee and the food.

The first leg of the SaltyPaws was from Alicante to a small nature reserve called Isla de Tabarca. We tried to make more head way the first day, but we decided that beating against seven Beaufort was simply not worth it. We circled the island and found a good anchorage.

The next leg is from Isla de Tabarca to Mar Menor. We started out with a good half wind, but gradually the wind lightened, and shifted

We found a really quite anchor spot in Mar Menor. While all sides of Mar Menor are built up solid, this little island just had a few signal towers. Without any waves, and a very light wind, this was one good night for sleeping. The water looked very attractive for a swim, until we saw it was jelly fish infested. There is a current going into the Mar Menor, fueled by the evaporation, and drawing the jellys in. Once they are in they are there to stay, until it gets colder. The natural predators for the jellys are sea turtles. It is unfortunate that they are so scarce, as right now we could have used a few.

In order to catch the wind, we stay offshore quite a bit when we are passing the spanish coast line. Just as the girls team did in the race, we head closer to shore near Marbella, in order to avoid the strong current through the Gibraltar straight.

Atlantic crossing - Update 17 November

A small update to the maps, the distance to St. Vincent is now shown, although I am not sure if that is his actual destination. :) But if it is, there is "only" 940 nautical miles remaining from the original 2590 NM.

Apologies for the hardly legible dates but it's out of my hands!

The bigger map with daily distances: