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Voyageur - Leg 2 - Log 1 - Departure



16/17 May

I spent the morning of departure in food preparation, very unusual for me but with a later start, for this leg, 1pm, there was plenty of time. First I made a batch of chocolate biscuit crunch cake, then a round of rolls for lunch so that we can eat straight away after the start, and finally a fish pie for tonight, made with wahoo, tuna and prawns. I spent the last of our dollars buying ice cream, a cauliflower, courgette and cucumber. Meanwhile David did his passage planning and posted the blog up to date. It is the most beautiful day, not at all like our arrival, and although we would have loved another couple of sightseeing days here at least our memory is of seeing the island at its best. We have had a wonderful stopover here, St George’s a perfect place for us to rest up and are both agreed it is definitely a place we would come back to.

We slipped the mooring lines 12.30 pm sharp and headed out. The start line was inside the bay and thankfully because there are now so many of us on this leg we are in two groups. Going through the cut was mega stressful. Everybody had been advised to keep their engine on as our group would be manoeuvring in close quarters. We motor sailed through the gap. Once upon a time cruise ships to come in here but they have now become too large and have to go to the dockyard, which was to our advantage as the town had reverted to the quiet place of long ago. Once outside however we were able to spread ourselves out. The wind was very light at first but we persevered until when our speed dipped below four knots and the engine went on. Stephen (A Lady) says that he is going to keep up a speed of six knots for the entire passage and anything below that he will motor. Goodness, if we did that we would be motoring most of the time! In the late afternoon now 18nm out Bermuda dipped below the horizon. We see no land now for the next 1800nm. At 9pm we had our first glimpse of an approaching squall. Stephen had already called us while we were still within VHF range to warn us of strong winds. We reefed down the main and genoa and waited for it to happen but after a short shower of rain we left slopping about. We fired up the engine again but within a few minutes it hit us good and proper. Off we went. Oh, it was a horrible night, the wind gusting to 25knots, big buffeting seas that knocked us about. We are having to sail as close to the wind as we can to stay south, there’s all sorts of weather going on in the next few days We had great difficulty moving around down below. It was a minor miracle that everything in the cabin stayed reasonably intact. To make matters worse I felt the onset of a cold (I am certain it was from the air conditioning on our long bus journey of two days ago) and spent the night dosing myself with Paracetamol. We took it in turns to rest, two hours each, but of course it was too uncomfortable. By the early hours I had resorted to Stugeron, not for sea sickness, (I am very lucky in that respect having cured myself long ago), but to help me sleep and it worked a treat for I slept three blissful hours in the main saloon, my head towards the centre of the boat so that every time she gave a great lurch my feet didn’t go above my head. Voyageur really needs these heavy wind conditions she is so heavy and was averaging between seven and half to eight knots. Such a black, black night, you could not see the big rollers coming and we shipped a few big ones into the cockpit. Dawn seemed a long time in the coming but as the day wore on the winds steadied, the seas became more regular.

We could hear Radio Bermuda from an astonishing 172nm away. We spent the whole day catching up on lost sleep. But thankfully the winds are less gusty today, a good steady force five with Voyageur bowling along under sunny skies. We have lost sight of everybody now. There were a few tiny lights dotted around us last night but since breakfast the last sight of a sails astern of us disappeared over the horizon. Lunch was Greek salad, and supper, unheard of, I opened a tin of Irish stew, tinned peas and mashed potatoes with chopped spring onion. I was having a night off.

Susan Mackay


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