Another rough day. Another day of drunken champagne sailing, wibblimg and wobbling, onwards and westwards. Another 154.7 nm covered. We have reached the eastern bulge of the top end of South America. No longer open ocean, but now Suriname due south of us. Grenada, the southern most Caribbean Island, is due west. Both about 485 miles away. Venezuela south west of us, in between. After 1,700 ish miles we may have cracked it!
The wind has been slightly less, at around 22 knots, but the sea has been more disturbed, with swell over 3m and waves from all over the place. Sometimes it gets calmer. Sometimes it gets rougher. Both wind and sea that is. Easterly wind, but shifting a bit around that axis. We have been on constant look out for squalls. One hit us overnight, but no lasting impact - once my clothes have dried!
Frances Louise has been corkscrewing around a bit, sometimes rather alarmingly. The perennial debate has been are we pushing her too hard, or would more sail and more speed improve the motion. How do we balance between that? Should we be running more south westerly with the majority of the waves? We played around a bit with settings, but with constantly changing parameters could not come to a lasting solution. We have time in hand to get to the Caribbean Party on December 10th. We want to spend the next few months exploring paradise, not fixing the boat, and we don’t want to hurt her. So we have carried on conservatively at 5 - 6 knots through the water, 6-7 knots over the ground.
It’s a noisy ride, due to the sea state, and because the boat is creaking and things in cupboards move and bang. So sleep is not as easy. For most of the day one of us was trying to rest. Our spirits remain incredibly high. The boat is orderly and we are eating well.
So all is fine on the good ship Frances Louise.