Karma Daze - Day 19 Where Has All the Wind Gone?

11 pm Saturday night – we have now been motoring for 48 hours.  There is a large area with light/very light winds in this part of the Atlantic.  We ran into it when we were about 500 miles from St Lucia with the prospect that there would be no wind until Monday.  However, looking at weather forecast we have and other boats have we are hoping that the wind will gradually start returning late afternoon/early evening on Sunday.  We were quite concerned when we first started motoring that we may have to sit and wallow as we do not have enough diesel to take us all the way to St Lucia, but we are now more optimistic that we have sufficient to get us to the wind.

Our first motoring day we had a conversation with a passing large motor yacht on its way to Grenada.  They were taking a detour to one of the weather station buoys that are in this part of the Atlantic to fish.  They assured us that the fish congregate around the buoys.  Well we didn’t have to do this as shortly afterwards we caught a large dorado – about 3 feet long.  It was a struggle to get it on board as it put up quite a fight, but we managed to get it on deck and subdued it with a slug of gin in its gills.  Dorados are beautifully coloured fish which slowly fade once they are dead.  But it made a very nice dinner and we had enough to freeze some.

So far none of us has plucked up courage to go in for a swim – though some of the other boats have.  It is very hot so maybe tomorrow one of us will succumb.

The night sky has been amazing; tonight is a bit cloudy but the last 2 nights have been cloudless and moonless so the sky is just a mass of stars.  The first motoring night saw a great display of shooting stars but not so many since.