eXite - Exite 1/12 - approaching Grenada

As has been usual with the last passages, the last 24 hours before arriving seem to bring out the crazy mess of the environment. For about 3-4 days we had planned our approach to Grenada - taking a south track past Tobago. This due to minimise the gibes, having right of way towards all other boats, and having a better comfort level on board. Last night we had 12-14 hours of constant squalls (still have 1-2 per hour), which have a wind direction 30-50 degrees more easterly than the trade winds = we end up more north and probably have to both gibe a few times as well as keeping clear of other boats.So much for us trying to plan ahead…Yesterday we got a new Näbbis - this time a black/brown sea bird, but he wanted to sit on top of the mast so we had to get him away as we didn’t want him to. read more...

eXite - Exite 30/11 - sad day

This morning Näbbis decided to leave us and move on to new adventures. Two days of rolling on our boat with plenty of water to drink he finally got brave enough to jump into the cockpit and sit right next to the stairs to the saloon - soon thereafter he wasn’t to find on the boat anymore. We think it was his way of saying good bye.Now all we are left with are his poo to clean up… We are waiting for the squalls to take care of it for us, but the ones so far hasn’t had enough rain in them.Crossed paths with our second boat today since leaving Mindelo. We saw and talked to each other two days ago, but today we crossed paths around 200m from each other in the middle of a squall. Wonder what they thought as we stood there naked waiting for the rain to kick in and cool us down…250 miles to. read more...

eXite - Exite 29/11 - adopted a bird

When eating lunch yesterday Vincent yelled, what I thought was, “vågor vågor” (waves waves), but what he actually yelled was “fågel fågel”(bird, bird = the Swedish sounds for waves and birds sounds almost alike). My response was “yes we have been at sea for ten days, of course there are waves; nothing new”. Quickly got corrected by Elliot “there is a bird on the boat, its sitting here”.And they were right. A quite big white bird with really long legs and a long beak was sitting at the guard rail watching us. After a while he flew to the front of the spray hood, and he has been sitting there since then - around 24h - just watching us and the sea and swinging along with the rolling motions of the boat.He has slowly gotten accustomed to us and this morning he actually came up to me in the. read more...

eXite - Exite 27/11 - becalmed

An almost uneventful day going towards the end. Out here uneventful days are good days cause it means shit hasn’t been breaking. We have been lucky so far with barely any breakages and hope it will keep this way to the finish, though we will have some maintenance to look forward to as the salt, sun and 3000 miles of sailing since leaving Las Palmas do put some strain on the gear.For the first time since leaving Mindelo we saw other animals than fly fish and the seagull-like-birds. We saw tuna jumping and trying to catch the fly fish. Lots and lots of tuna jumping around the boat the whole day. And did we catch anything? No. We only caught sea weed. Lots of sea weed…We also managed to find the only calm spot on the ocean (it felt like it at least) and for a few hours we were bouncing. read more...

eXite - Exite 26/11 - cracks

Yesterday might have been the most eventful day since the start in Mindelo, in both good and bad ways.Passed the halfway point.Passed into 3-digit territory = less than 1000 miles left.Saw our first sailing boat since the 18th of November.Almost had a flying fish jumping into the boat - it landed in the cockpit about 10cm from the open windows…I fell in the cockpit trying to get to the wheel in the middle of the night and probably got a crack in my collarbone. Not pleasant, but glad it didn’t break.. Also probably in the foot as well, but at least not broken either.Found a crack in the vang fitting on the boom, which means we don’t really dare to load up with more sails as we want to limit the damages. So the full main sail probably wont be up for this crossing (had reefs the whole time. read more...