Simple habits, simple boat

One blister and the doctor fixing it. Last night was more peaceful with my cabin heavily sprayed with pesticides.

Regards Yrvind

To day Sylvie a nurse from a french yacht remowed the bandage from the first blister. It looks good and most of the redness are gone. The antibiotic cure will be finished tomorrow, me then having swallowed all the pills in the little box.

Unfortunatly two new bites on the left foot has started new blisters and tonight I got ten or twenty more on my back. Life in harbour is to dangerous.

Today I went to the supermarket and against my philosophy bought insecticides. The biggest most powerful can I could find. Its a question of survival. I nearly emptied the can in my cabin. Bystanders told me that if the bugs do not kill me then the insecticides will.

I will do a little ventilation tonight before I go to bed. To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

My antibiotics cure will be finished on saturday. However Anne one of the sailing doctors told me that it is prudent to wait with departure two to three days after that. Monday or thusday will therefore be possible departure days.

Luckily the GRIB-files look good for now. However one should not trust them completely. In fact one should not trust anyone or anything completely except the sea.

I have heard from different sources that the real wind speed is 20%, 50% and even up to 100% faster than shown by the GRIB. Remembering that the wind force increases with the square of the speed the forces are respectivly 44%, 225% and 400% stronger than what one is made to belive.

Especially the wind speed of hurricanes are underestimated because the cover a relatively small area compared to the GRIB-net.

Fortunatly small boats have less to fear from hurricanes than big ones becouse they atract much smaller forces. Especially my boat being very small, being home made and of epoxy  and with much carbon fibre and thick heavy Divinycell have nothing to fear unless very close to a lee shore.

Less good this night I had a visit from an other mousquito. I hope these bites will not repeat my previus problems and delay departure. The sea is a much safer place I long to get going.

This is the sail arrangement for downwind sailing. Note the boom is foreward of the shroud. It is out more than 120 degrees. This makes for stable downwind running. Only problem it takes time to change to the other side. It also reduces changes of unintentional gibes. Therefore next boat will have unstayed masts.

Regards Yrvind. Thanks Beppe webbmaster for help with inserting the picture. One day hopefully it will get into my head.

Today started with me getting help from Tim Rohnen on the German Yacht MAMITI. He is a nurse and helped me to change the antibiotics on my blister. He did a very professional job and it felt secure to be in his hands.

In the afternoon Luis Camacho from Funchal Madeira showed me the western part of the island from his car. Yesterday he and his wife Susana had given me dinner and on the way to his house he had shown me the more wild eastern part of Porto Santo. I liked it much. I prefered it to the western part. Sadly the doktor has told me that I must rest my leg and should not walk othervise it would be a nice excursion for other days.

I have a problem pillow. I bought it at JYSK in my home town Västervik just before leaving. The prices at JYSK are cheap. My pillow was made in China. It did not cost much. Previusly I had bought a simular one to my bed in my flat. Unfortunatly feathers kept coming out of it.

The problem with the new pillow was that even more feathers was coming out of it and at a faster rate. According to the laws of nature the feathers came out with the sharp pointed end first. It irritating my soft head and disturbed my sleep and dreams.

Before going to sleep every night I therefore pull out as many feathers as I can see, maybee ten feathers every night. The pillow is obviusly getting thinner and thinner.

As an investigater in the mysteries of life I wonder if I will keep loosing feathers at the same linear rate.

Also as the pillow is getting thinner and thinner very slovly I wonder if I will have time to adapt to harder and harder headrest and when finally reaching Martinique I may not even need a pillow any more allowing me to lead a more simple life and a more uncomplicated life.

Regards Yrvind

The proportion of singlehanded sailors has increased dramatically.

Before now a singlehanded sailor was a rare bird. Now here in Porto Santo there is at least 5 singlehanders may bee 20% of the fleet.

Modern electronics like RADAR, AIS and radar transponders has made the sailing much safer. Now there is always someone on watch and that someone keeps an outlook much better than any crews ears and eyes. On a dark rainy night many times you can not see even half a mile. Now 20 – 30 miles is no problem

Also navigation and sailhandling has been revolutionised. To find your position even in a dark stormy night is only a matter of looking at the plotter.

Also now the sinlehander has an engine to his help and it is the boats most powerfull propulsion system, many times stronger than the sails. It has an endurance of hundreds of miles. And of course it can push the boat right against the wind. No need to tack.

Sattelite phones and compact shortwave radios lets the sailor communicate whith people a shore.

I am sure much more is to come like electronic charts with tide currents and weather. Even systems to navigate your boat from your house ashore may not be impossible for the whealthy in the future. With helicopter delivery, then the sailor can chose the most pleasant parts of an ocean passage. When bad weather arrivies he cals for the helicopter and puts the boat on selfsteering, then when the bad weather is gone the sailor let the helicopter put him back onboard and takes over the sailing from the automatic systems.

Soon after I arrived here a bug bit me a dark night, a mousquito or a flee or something. I do not know.  A few days later a blister developed on the spot. The blister grow and grow instead of getting smaller and smaller as I had hoped.

As my late mother used to say; always respect pour freinds and small wounds. Therefore this morning I took a walk to the hospital.

Outside the hospital I hesitated. Was the blister really big enough to bother the doctors. Also would I catch a new set of desises and finally I realised that the hospital wisit would cost me so much money that my icecreamconsumption would have to be severly reduced.

I am glad that I finally went in. Everyone treated me very kindly. Not only that, the microbes had multiplied and spread now they also had spread beyond the blister and invaded the whole leg below the knee.

The big blister was punktured. The pus was squesed out. Antibiotica was applied and I was told not to shower.

In this heat several showers a day has helped me to survive the heat.

After arguing a bit with the doctor he allowed me to continue with my showers if I put plastic around my leg.

After thinking a bit I bought household wrapping plastic and when back on the marina wrapped it around my leg to prevent the water to reach the punctured blister. The showering was succesful.

I have to be back at the hospital on saturday. I feel that the trouble and the money is well worth it.

It is not a good idea to start a long ocean voyage with microbes in the body.

Regards Yrvind.

The weather situation seems stagnant. There is a lot of depressions out there moving the Acores out of its place. Also right here there is a high pressure with nearly no winds.

What wind there is comes from the south and is much to warm for a swede.

Too keep reasonably cool I been in the water polishing the hull. A stationary boat attracts slime, no good. I hope to be on the move soon.

Unfortunatly I most probably will be here an other week.

Best regards Yrvind.

Then there was plenty of space. Now the harbour is full. Things have changed.

Yesterday the last of three packages for my crossing to Martinique arrivied. This morning I filled up with the exellent Porto Santo water. I have now about 70 liter. More than enough for a leasury philosophical voyage. I will take my time enjoying the beutiful ocean life.

I hope the crossing will take a long time. I prefer the life on the ocean wave to life ashore.

I am testing the SPOT tracker to make shure you can follow me. It works.

I have rearranged things aboard. The anchor and the fender are now mowed from the forehatch to the back on the outside. I have mowed some sails to the forehatch. This has brought the center of gravity further back. Good for down wind sailing.

I will do some more diving scrubbing the bottom more and buy some more luxurary privisions like cakes and chocholate.

Before leaving my webbmaster told me I must use Mac not PC. The Mac gives less trouble but it uses a different system for pictures. It will take me a long time to relearn. Thats the reason for no pictures.

I hope to have learned to the Mac photo system to the next boat.

The wind is from the south it seams like a big depression is uppsetting the usual weather pattern. In the end of the week it may bee back to normal and then I hope to be ready to leave.

RegardsYrvind.