Atlantic

We are already half-way across the Atlantic. We have passed the Calms. The calms is an area without wind. This must be taken literally - not a breeze over the water just the up and down of the sea.

Without waves, which impede visibility, we can observe life under the water that is normally hidden - Dolphins that have accompanied us before, turtles and fish. A blue marlin with its dorsal fin raised up shot past us.

In the meantime we have winds again and these relieve us from the tropical heat. They are unfortunately not strong enough to really push Dagmar forward but sails end engine combined bring us further southwards towards the new world.

Volker Wenzel

Guinea-Bissau

We reached Guinea-Bissau at the end of the week. After we had registered on the island ob Bubaque, Arved and Brigitte arrived late Friday night and were given a warm greeting.
The reason for going to the Bijagos Islands is a travel documentation written by a German Hugo Bernatzki. His book "Im Reich der Bidiogo" tells of his expedition to the islands and describes, in a very empathetic way, the culture of the island inhabitants and the enslavement they experienced during Portugal's colonial power. We want to follow the traces of this widely unknown expedition and visit some of the original sites.

We sailed from Bubaque to the island of Orango where the legendary Queen Pampa once ruled. With the Bijogs the women had the say. They decided on their marital partners and could arrange for a divorce from these partners. Queen Pampa was a clever chief diplomat who even won herself large respect from the Portugese colonial rulers. After she died in 1927, her reign was passed on to another family member. We met the last person of this dynasty. His name ist Augusto Fernandez; he is over 90 years old and he remembers the "legendary queen".

It is like being in a sauna on board

Many things have changed here since the expedition took place. The conditions of the colonial times have fortunately disappeared. The village, the old houses - these all function as in the past. There is also a school, an infirmary, for which there is unfortunately neither a nurse or a doctor, and naturally there is still the old house which belonged to the queen. To this day it is not allowed to enter it. With the reigning queen we are able to visit the burial house, in which all of the queens including Queen Pampa are buried.
Everywhere in the village and along the paths hang fetishes to ward off disaster. This is an unbelievably exciting excursion into the history of this culture or rather of the small state of Guinea-Bissau, which is approximately the size of Lower Saxony. It is now the rainy season - temperatures are around 35° and the humidity is at 85%.

There are heavy rain showers daily. On board it is like being in a sauna. Other than this it is magnificient. Photos of our expedition will follow - there are transmission problems at the moment. Today we are sailing on to other islands in this archipelago..

On the way

Pos. 06.09. - 1200 UTC: 21°23,8' N  19° 29,4' W

The routing charts forecast constant winds from eastern of 4 on the Beaufort scale for this part of the journey. The CRIB-Data which was sent to us shows exactly the same picture. It seems as if the tropical storm Fred, that formed itself on the Cape Verde Islands, has strongly stirred up the wind system. The first two days met up with these expectations and then the wind died down.

Today, at last, a strong wind is blowing again from the north-north-east - and we hope it will stay this way. In the past few nights, single flying fish have flown on deck time and time again. They are about the size of a herring and flee from their predators by flying out of the water - they spread their fins like wings and glide for a few meters.

Flying Fish

They mistakenly think that "Dagmar Aaen" is also a predator and attempt to escape the supposed natural enemy by flying over her. Flying over does not always work, however, and so the cutter and her crew become the natural enemy. Last night so many swarms flew over deck that the crew on watch was forced to seek safety below deck in order to protect themselves from being constantly hit on the head.

The fish that landed on deck and were big enough were swiftly gathered up and landed in the frying pan for lunch. They not only look like herring but they taste like them too...