At Sea and Madeira

Wednesday

A bit of excitement today; late afternoon the captain informed us that one of the two evaporators on board, used for turning salt water into drinking water, had broken down.  That meant instead of our usual 16.4 knots we were now doing 22 knots – Aurora’s maximum speed is 24 knots.  This higher speed had to be kept up in order that fresh water could be made from the remaining evaporator but that in turn meant we would be in Madeira at 2300 Wednesday instead of 0800 Thursday!

We had a lovely day in Madeira, blue skies and temperatures around 20/21c.  We walked miles, visited a local park/garden and I took quite a few photographs.  Late afternoon we went out again and bought some lovely flowers to brighten up the cabin.  The photo shows them in the beautiful Dartington cut glass vase that we were given for taking the Grand Voyage.

We left Madeira just after 1800 but not before the captain had again warned us of some bumpy weather ahead in the north Atlantic, predicted to last from late evening today and all day tomorrow (Friday).  The warning is for a 4 metre swell which will cause Aurora to roll!  Oops!

We now have 5 days at sea until we reach Recife, which will be where my next blog will come from.