Sojourner - Sojourner, Day 12. No, 15. Huh? Day 16?

What the heck happened to Day 14???We suppose that once we hit the trade winds, each day is pretty much like the next.....running wing & wing, Monika the windvane (origins of that nickname undoubtedly lost in the annals of time) doing all the driving, dealing with the occasional squall, and finding reasons to have celebrations.Which are coming more frequently; first there was the "less than 2000NM to go" celebration, then the 1/2 way (1333.5NM) celebration, then the "under 1000NM" celebration, then the 2/3 of the way (889NM) celebration, then the 3/4 of the way (666.7 NM) celebration.....you all get the drift.In all that time we have seen two boats; a German couple (non-ARC) headed to T&T that we traveled within sight of for 24 hours, and then Vagaris as we passed them Monday. read more...

Sojourner - Day 9

Hi Folks,We made a decision earlier today to take a more southerly heading rather than directly toward St. Lucia in order to avoid some low wind areas ahead of us.I think that will be a good decision in the long run but even where we are the winds have been only 10 to 12 knots so consequently our progress has been slow.The good news is that today has been sunny, warm and without much in the way of squalls.Pete made an Irish stew from scratch for dinner which was delicious.We are in somewhat of a hurry to cook up some things in the freezer that had thawed unexpectedly and thus the stew beef today and chicken likely tomorrow - unless of course Bob catches another fish.We have an order in for tuna. Also, we switched over to our second water tank today which was somewhat earlier than. read more...

Sojourner - Day 5; Eating words with extra salt.....

Been another tough day of working upwind against building NW winds and seas.....20-25kts and 2.5 to 3 meter seas, pretty bouncy ride and keeps driving us south of our desired course, playing havoc with our VMG.Been a good test of our watertight integrity; the new portlight seals we installed in Las Palmas have been great, no or minimal leaking there.Dorades a different story, need to recaulk to get rid of those annoying drips.At any rate, we expect the winds to clock tonight and think we will be reaching starting tomorrow and all will be rainbows and unicorns again.So what is life like on a heeling, bouncing boat crashing through waves?If you are in the Vee Berth, you pray for the integrity of the hull fiberglass as the waves sound like explosions a foot from Ken"s head and sometimes the. read more...

Sojourner - Day four: Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from the Sojourner crew.Been a great day of sailing, nothing important broke, nobody got hurt, and we may have moved up a spot or two in the standings......all of which is great and for which we are thankful......but mostly we are thankful for this opportunity afforded us by all those we have back at home.Well, we are also thankful for rum, and veils, but that's another story.And a special "Happy Birthday" shout-out from Bob to his daughter Nicole.Tom and Ken saw a lot of threatening clouds on their 6pm to 1am shift last night, but only had a slight drizzle a couple of times. On the following watch Bob and Pete had steady, sometimes hard, rain for an hour. Woke up this morning to mostly sunny skies and warmer temps and the winds, all day, have been 15 to 20. read more...

Sojourner - Day three

Hi Folks,Sailing conditions have improved so that we have been maintaining 6+ knots mostly directly toward our destination.Way too soon to have a meaningful ETA but it looks much better than the horrid 12/21 shown earlier.Things that broke:The line in the whisker pole either came unfastened internally or frayed through.It will not stay extended without that line working. We have some ideas for jerry rigging something but this is the third time this combined trip that it failed. May need a new whisker pole at some point. Now we are sailing nicely with a reefed main and a full headsail.We will be able to use a spinnaker soon,, I hope, but with higher wind speeds going down wind, having a wing on wing configurationwould give us the best speed. The boat rolls constantly and with that. read more...