We did a good start on Wednesday at 1300 Mindelo time. We tried to sail as much to the south as possible to avoid the wind shadow of Sao Antao island about 10 nautical miles to our west. In doing so we ran into the acceleration zone and encountered stormy conditions with big seas and wind gusts up to 50 knots (force 9 on the Beaufort scale). But the wind shadow we didn’t avoid after all and ended up stack for 15-20min in a swell and light winds from variable directions. It was hard even to point to the right direction. A sudden gust from the north freed us from our misery and headed south as fast as possible. On the AIS screen we saw several boats around us struggling with the conditions.
After that the conditions stabilized to medium seas and a nice breeze from the east north east, as expected. The trades are here.
We are all well and in good mood.
Panos Kontogiannis and the crew of cookelu meu on the ARC+