It’s been a stop-start week, but Max and Man Berque have made good progress. They have hopped along the Portuguese coast and by 31 August they were stuck in Sesimbra, just south of Lisbon, waiting for an end to the southerly wind.
The good news is that they got their Net connection working, so a wet and miserable evening became less boring. We Facebook followers should feel flattered that they preferred to spend the evening both squeezed into the same ‘high-tech coffin’ chatting to us than to get drenched walking to the nearest bar – even if there would be no-one they knew waiting for them.
One surprising thing is that Micromégas has already accumulated a noticeable amount of weed, even though the sea temperature is only 16°C. (She has no anti-fouling).
They planned to go for a swim and scrub it off before setting sail for Cape St Vincent, the southern end of Portugal. Then they will hole up round the corner in Sagres, waiting for suitable weather before setting off on their first open sea leg – to the Canaries.
That will reduce the communication channel to a few SMS messages sent from their Iridium phone until they make landfall.
