Albatross - Dec 4 - 15th Day at Sea

All is well. We are 1,045 miles from St Lucia, and Las Palmas is 1,653 miles behind us.

Yesterday, at around 11:00pm we started seeing lighting in the distance. We took down the main, opened a full jib, closed all hatches and got ready for the night.

Six hours later, in a matter of minutes, the wind shifted from a easterly to a southerly, and became very cold. Wind speed went up from 12-14 to 18-24 knots. The mainsail was already down, and we rolled half the jib. Shortly after, it started to rain heavily and the rain lasted for 90 minutes. It was pitch dark, and Chuck and I got completely soaked. The one advantage of the new wind direction was that we were able to sail directly towards our waypoint, at 274°. Before the wind shift all we could manage was 145°-150°.

The rest of the day was uneventful. We had mainly light wind, and we alternated between sailing and motor-sailing. We just downloaded the wind and precipitation forecast grids with the sat phone and it appears that tomorrow we will have 10-15 knots. It will be a nice change as we are starting to grow impatient with the slow pace. We estimate that at 900 rpm we can motor at 4.5 knots for about 500 miles, and with 1,000 miles to go we have to be patient and resist the urge to motor too much.

Today for lunch we had a variety of cold meats: fuet, lomo Ibérico , chorizo, cheeses, and the remaining of the blood sausage. And for dinner we had two roasted chickens with mashed potatoes and green peas.

We also took advantage of the mild weather to take a bath with our daily allowance of fresh water from the tank (3 liters per person).

We are now preparing for the night. We are all on deck, chatting and reading, watching the sunset. Forecast calls for light winds strengthening slightly overnight and, thankfully, no rain.