Its another hot and sunny day and unfortunately one without wind. The water is calm enough that looking out on all sides we can perceive the curvature of the earth. We are motor sailing directly into the little wind that we do have. We have just under 500 miles to go.
Luckily Mary Ann did an awesome job provisioning the boat and we still have lots of creative and interesting meals in front of us. I actually enjoy the challenge, and, thus far, our crew of five seems to enjoy the results. We even baked a loaf of lemon poppyseed cake for desert last night!
Its in stark contrast to the 25-30 kts, squalls and rain we had for several hours last night. Nothing quite like being awoken from a dead sleep to less than a minute later standing on the bow in pouring rain while we tack. Sleeping on the boat is absolutely the best…the boat rocks you to sleep and the lee cloths stop you from rolling too far. The only challenge is that the sleeps are 3 hours long. I’m about ready for a straight 8 or 9 hours right now.
We are headed due south to the trade winds and expect we may reach them later today. Once we reach them we know the going will be faster. And while we are all having fun, I don’t think it will take much encouragement to get everyone on deck to trim for speed once we do find them.
The current projection is that we will arrive in Tortola early Monday. According to the nightly SSB net this is one of the slowest Caribbean 1500’s on record.
While its been a long time since we’ve seen any other boats, from our fleet or otherwise, we were encouraged this morning to see a couple of birds. They seem to be in pursuit of the flying fish.
Good luck to my osprey girls in the game tomorrow!
Paula