... is waiting to be filled and sent. An empty Pinot Grigio bottle is already washed and sits in the cockpit for drying. Yesterday and the day before the captain and me therefore had the pleasure of drinking a glas of wine. Usually, we don’t drink alcohol on passage, but the ocean is clam and we need to consider alternative communication measures, as we were not able to send our current log update yesterday.

Unlike most cruisers, we are sending email via WinLink and SSB radio, not by IridiumGo satellite phone. Meaning that all letters of a given email would first be modulated by a software modem. The resulting noises would then be send as electromagnetic waves by our antenna, which is spanned between the aft deck and the mast top. Subsequently, a radio station would receive the message, translate it back to letters and finally send it as an email. This is slow. When we try to send an email from board it could easily mean spending one hour in front of our SSB radio. In that situation, receiving large emails or emails with attachments takes much longer or is not possible at all.

On many days we get a connection to a radio station - currently we use one in Mauritius mostly - within a few minutes. But sometimes it takes hours and many tries and sometimes getting in contact is not working at all. The later means it is not possible to post an actual log. For complaints please address the sun, not us, as she is responsible for the inadequate ionisation of our atmosphere and the resulting lack of reflection of our radio waves.

Yesterday, we spent hours in front of our SSB radio but finally failed to post the log. For our position update we phoned the watchkeepers directly. In such cases, also Flo, our security officer ashore, will be informed that we are fine within one or two days. He will put a short comment to the last post to tell we are fine, as yesterday evening. Don’t worry, if our log is not updated daily, it’s the sun, not the pirates.

And yes, we are still sailing with northerly winds on the nose.