Position 16.48.020N 030.43.562W
|
Day
|
Date
|
Time
|
Miles
to St Lucia
|
Miles
in 24hrs to destination
|
Cum
Miles to Dest
|
Miles
sailed in 24hrs
|
Cum
miles sailed total
|
|
Wednesday
|
18th
|
13:00
|
2090
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thursday
|
19th
|
13:00
|
1901
|
189
|
|
198
|
|
|
Friday
|
20th
|
13:00
|
1756
|
145
|
334
|
183
|
381
|
The wind has continued to be slightly in the wrong direction for us with no downwind sail so we have had to tac through the night and day. The wind is right behind us. The disparity between the miles sailed and the miles towards our destination is starting to show now. I hope the table above is appearing OK in the blog format. In case it is unreadable it’s telling us we have sailed 381nm in distance but only 334nm of it towards St Lucia.
The waves have been less regular and slightly more bumpy overnight and today - but we are coping OK and no breakages (yet) despite some reeling around the boat occasionally. We are slowly getting the Mindelo water out of our tanks and making our own and as we do the taste improves slowly although the Mindelo water is all made from a water maker from seawater and was not bad at all.
We have been doing a reasonable speed most of the time and keeping above 7kts achieving comfortably over 10kts for some periods in higher winds.
Around us in the night we could see on our AIS Widago, Anorak and we chatted to Distant Shores II about how we were going to pass each other on opposite tacs and passed the time of day with them. We went behind them as they were well set up for downwind with front sails set as a goosewing which looked great. It takes some controlling and they showed their many years of long distance sailing expertise. We passed them very close and gave them a wave.
During the 6am to 10am watch we spoke with Arriba who were also set up for downwind and altered course for them so we passed behind. They told us they had caught some fish and sounded very upbeat. I told them so far we can only talk about the ones that got away as we have managed to lose 2 of our lures - but we keep hoping for a big one!
Mealtimes have been looked forward to as usual with butternut squash soup and a hearty beef stew yesterday.
It’s a sunny warm day today and we are all in Polo Tops and shorts up on the flybridge chatting. We can see on AIS 3 other boats in the fleet - Huamana on our starbaord side about 8nm away - Arriba who we left pass in front ahead about 3.5nm and Aurora 9nm behind us.
Sam and Glen claim to have seen a dolphin this morning but we do wonder of it was a Kyle Dolphin as there were unusually no photos to prove it.
The weather forecast arrived by email earlier and it seems the wind is going to remain largely as it is for the next few days so we will continue to tac!
Everyone is fine on board and enjoying the passage.
Satphone +881677741334 (Takes a while to connect please be patient and leave ringing)