Linda took over the helm at 3:30 AM Bermuda time last night. She kept sailing long past her due time and the ride was so comfortable I slept like I would at home for 7 hours. Sweet. Not only that, but Linda even came down and fixed Mike and me scones and fresh Coffee. It doesn't get any better than that; breakfast in bed after a good night's sleep on the Ocean. Mike's comment was "if you get a chance to marry her, you should." We had to take a picture of the moment because it was a great morning as we sat there drinking coffee and talking for about an hour. The seas were calm enough for a shower, so I am ready for a long sailing shift today. Rock On!
We are jumping around time zones as Bermuda is 1 hour ahead of EST. EST is 4 hours (-4) less than UTC (Universal Time Code, also called "Zulu" or Greenwich Mean Time). The Azores is +0, or the same as UTC. Right now it is 1230 (or 12:30 PM) in UTC, 0830 (8:30AM) in EST, 0930 (9:30 AM) in Bermuda time. It keeps us confused. I don't know if you can get "jet-lag" on a boat, but we might.
We are passing the miles and having a comfortable ride across the Atlantic. From a Longitude perspective we are going from a little less than 65 degrees West in Bermuda to 28 degrees West in Fiail Azores. Now we are at about 60 degrees. The Wind has consistently been from the South at about 15 knots for the past day or so, and right now we are moving at 6.3 knots over ground on a course of about 60 degrees. We are about 90 miles North of the Rhumb line (straight line), but it looks like from the weather GRIBs that I have downloaded that at this latitude (North of the Rhumb), we will be less likely to hit the Easterly winds, and more likely to keep them from the South for longer. In other words, we would prefer not to have headwinds and by going North maybe we can avoid them. We have been on the same Starboard tack since we left Bermuda 2 days ago. I think we ran the engine for a total of 2 hours on the first night, so it has been smooth sailing.
By not running the engine it means the batteries are getting a little lower and almost to the point where we need to charge them. We ran the Generator engine for a few hours last night and will have to do it again in a few hours. It's nice to have great wind - not too much, not too little- but running the generator spoils the ambiance of the wind and waves. It's just another diesel engine. We have had the Monitor windvane do ALL of the steering since soon after we left Bermuda, so we aren't using power from the auto pilot, but we do still have the refrigerator, radar and chartplotter using power. Right now we have used 150 Amp Hours, and we try not to go below 200 Amp Hours. The battery bank has 420 Amp Hours and the general idea is that you try not to go below 50% of capacity or it will shorten the life of the batteries.
Life is great on Wild Goose. Mike had a little queasiness early in the trip, but that, with time and strong drugs, has passed. Everybody is feeling good, and Mike is on deck now adjusting some lines. We are always "tethered in" when we are on deck. We always hook on to a "jackline" so that if we fall we won't go far. That's rule number 1 in the ocean - don't go overboard.
We'll report back later, but from the looks of the weather report we have smooth sailing for a while. Monty, the Monitor, will hopefully take the brunt of all of the steering efforts today.