Blake - total gridlock

I think in the past 24hrs we have only seen 2 other sailboats on the horizon and they were both also on the AIS, headed the same general direction but looked to be non rally boats. I think this year will be a busy one for boats crossing as it sounds like a lot had delayed their trips from last year. We also had a non-rally boat the other day give us a DSC call, which was a first for us, nice to chat with them, a Lagoon 77 - we asked if they could drop off some ice cubes as they overtook us! With a DSC call your VHF starts ringing like an incoming phone call until you hit ok, then the boat calling you is already on channel 72, no need to call on vhf 16 and change channels.

When you hear other boats on channel 16 call up someone else and then switch channels, I always think it’s funny as I can just picture every other boat in the area all flicking through their vhf channels to listen in! There is a kind of illusion that it’s just the two of you chatting but conversations are certainly far from private and everyone wants to hear the gossip. You might hear some boats say let’s go up 2 or down 1 (through the channels) or let’s go private (to a pre-arranged channel), no matter the tactic guaranteed everyone is on scan trying to find out what you are talking about!

In other news we are under the 1000NM to go mark, which is great, we had a little dance party in the cockpit and blasted out some reggae tunes to get us in the mood. The new speakers are pretty loud, and we’re deciding what song to blast as we enter Rodney Bay! Girls are perfecting their uno skills (man that game can go on and on when the rules keep getting adjusted!) and Katie is blasting through all the books in the library. I actually just finished one about a guy who rows single handed, non-stop and unsupported from South America to Australia, holy smokes!

Much better days sailing today and tonight is very pleasant (can see the Southern Cross!) again makes you realize how bad the night before was! It’s those pesky squalls that cause the trouble and keep you on your toes.

Aloha, Blake