Back All Reports
Next 
17 07.71 N 040 34.11 W
Mileage noon to noon :119 nm
Distance to go: 1187 nm
Photo: Sunrise in the Atlantic Ocean
After 11 days and nights of 20-30 knot
winds, we've hit a wall! Last night we had wind from the NNE of 5-10 knots
and, although the seas have moderated quite a bit, we still have ocean swells
that rock the boat side to side and cause the sails to slat noisily. We
kept the boat sailing by heading a bit higher, but we had to be satisfied with
speeds of 3.5-4.5 knots. At one point today, it occurred to us that we
didn't have to just sit and wait for the wind, that we are not racing and we can
turn on the engine. We are now motor sailing and will continue for a few
hours. To date, we have only used the engine 2 hours each day to provide
electrical power on the boat, so we still have plenty of diesel fuel remaining
and we will continue to be conservative with it. We carry 127 gallons of
diesel, which is enough to provide electrical power and take us 814 miles.
And we have more miles than that left to go. We want to arrive in
Martinique with plenty of fuel to spare.
The light winds are expected to continue on into
Thursday, so we are taking advantage of the break today to do some laundry, get
the drifter out and ready to go up, do odd jobs and take cockpit
showers.
We had no squalls during the night and the sky above us
was cloud free and full of stars. We have a half moon now which lighted
our way west until it set at about 3 am. And this morning, the rising sun
turned the sky in the east a fiery red. All in all quite lovely.
We've kept our watches on UTC time to make it easier to
meet radio schedules with people who are in different time zones. It does
affect our day, though. The picture above was taken at 8:50 am. So
we start our day a lot later than we usually do. The sleeping crew are
light-activated and so do not usually get up until pretty close to
sunrise. The day seems to go by very fast. Before we know it, it's
time for dinner! The sun is also staying up a lot later now and sunset is
closer to 8:30 pm. We'll change our watches when we get to Martinique,
where it will be UTC-3 hrs.
Garry caught another fish yesterday - a yellow fin
something or other, we think a snapper. It was delicious!
All's well on board-
Tom, Peg and Garry
s/v Starboard Home
