I awoke with a start today. Apparently my mind was working overtime as I slept. I had an uneasy feeling that the extra fuel we brought onboard might not be diesel. When I went to the gas station I asked the attendant for diesel. She didn't speak English and I don't speak Spanish but it seemed like she would understand that word. She hesitated a bit but then proceeded to fill the cans. She used the green nozzle which in the US means diesel. But somewhere in the back of my mind I registered that elsewhere in continental Europe they don't use the same color-coding as we do. I didn't think anything of it (consciously) at the time. But when I awoke I knew I needed to check. Diesel fuel is very hard to ignite. I believe if you drop a match into it, the match will be extinguished.
So I got a small thimble of it and lit it. Definitely not diesel :-(
We have no extra fuel aboard. Just the 250 liters of our original 440liters and we are just 2.5 days into our trip. Ugh. I'm kicking myself. That's a bad mistake that could slow our trip down. We all discussed the implications. Less fresh water use for showers, etc. (the watermaker uses lots of electricity which requires fuel to generate) and if we are becalmed for awhile we have little fuel for propulsion.
We are going to change course slightly to make a detour possible to the Cape Verde islands if we deem it necessary In the next two days. Time will tell.
Holy Cow, Batman! Yes, green is indeed petrol(gasoline) but the attendant should've known "diesel". That's not exactly your error as you had every reason to expect they would know, but clearly compounded by America having a different standard - imperial/metric comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteSuggestion: check with the other boats as I believe some boats have petrol generators and you may be able to do a trade.
Otherwise I guess you need to give serious consideration to making that detour. There's the adventure, then there's good decision-making.
Oh no! Definitely a good idea to try and trade, or otherwise you may need to make that stop in the Cape Verde islands after all. Definitely the attendant's error, though, what a bummer!
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