Numada - log day 11 dolphin day

Our day started with a beautiful sunrise and a pod of about 10 dolphins who came to play under our bow: of course by the time we woke the children up and brought them outside, they were all gone.Dolphins showed up again at lunch time and it was really a special treat! We are making progress South one tack at the time, hoping the wind to turn South West tonight.. read more...

Numada - log day 8 Matthew’s birthday

Today we celebrated Matthew’s birthday with pancakes for breakfast, gifts, birthday cake and a movie in the afternoon all in rolling swells and being bounced all over the place. I am still amazed the cake did not end up on the floor!! We have also started heading south towards Tortola which has brighten our moods a lot. image1. read more...

Numada - log day 7 baking on Numada

Matthew is turning 8 tomorrow so today he baked a vanilla cake that we are going to decorate with chocolate frosting and fill it with salted caramel sauce!! Last night we had to deal with several squalls and this morning ended up changing course for 3 hours to avoid a very large one: I have never seen so much Lightning in my life. Lastly today I made the discovery that fruit flies can infect the galley even 500 miles from land!!image1. read more...

Numada - log day 6 square sail is back on Numada

Our captain has managed to repair the square sail and after lunch we put it back up in the hope to gain a little more speed in this 5-10 knots wind which is not enough to get our 25 tons steel boat moving at decent speed. At the moment it seems we have gained 1 extra knotversus the reacher sail we put up yesterday: fingers crossed!! The crew has also enjoyed the last two nights watch without squalls or showers: we are all feeling more rested and relaxed, what a difference!!. The children have been reading a lot, made some Thanksgiving decorations and built some nice tunnels and forts using all the pillows, blankets and towels they could find on the boat. image1. read more...

Numada - log day 4 trip up the mast on Numada

Unfortunately our square sail that we like to use in light winds snapped in the upper clew. We quickly rescued the sail but ended up with the up haul line on top of the mast. So the captain decided to climb up: Richard has done it many times before but this was his first time out at sea. Everything went well but Richard felt a bit sea sick afterwards. In this way we ended up using a reacher sail to speed us up: that is the beauty of having two masts!!image1. read more...