A cloudy day for the most part.
I came up with what I thought was a better solution for a gimbal for the Starlink dish. There was just enough room to suspend the dish in front of the top solar panel using the Arch structure and the top of the pole I installed as fixing points.
By the time Mick emerged from his morning snooze I had finished the installation and the dish was swinging merrily. Too much as Mick acknowledged - it did need damping as I had suggested it would. It's a pleasure to be right when Mick is involved! Anyway, he added a bit of bungee cord as a dampener and made a couple of other refinements and with great expectations we switched Starlink on. However, after 45 minutes we still had no connection and being low on power we turned it off.
Mick then tried our previous idea of settling up a gimbal low in the cockpit where the dish would be further away from the rigging. Same result. The only thing left to try other than leaving it on for a couple of hours (which would have to wait until we had full batteries - which in turn would probably require running the engine for a few hours) was to try it at night when atmospheric conditions may be more conducive to making a connection more quickly.
I cooked a roast chicken dinner using the second of the 4 half chicken joints we bought in the market in Mindelo. I even managed to make gravy which was quite a feat given the boat's rolling! The meal was enjoyed by all the crew!
Off Watch I had my best half night's sleep to date, but even so became aware that we had slowed down.
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