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Persistent Lady - Wednesday June 11, 2014



On our way to Gibraltar, a short hop; only 1,100 miles. Seems strange to say 1,100 miles is a short hop, but after the long trip across to the Azores, made even longer because we had to hand steer over 1,500 miles of the trip and could not leave the helm unattended, 1,100 miles with the autopilot to do the steering and the ability to leave the helm unattended for 10 – 15 minutes at a time really does seem short. We left Horta Monday about 6:00 PM and headed out keeping PICO to port and sailing a little south to also keep Sao Miguel to port and leave Santa Maria to starboard. After that we only had to worry about a natural preserve that is protected and has several shallow spots of between 100 and 300 feet. We steered north of that then set a course of approximately East, which is the rhumb line to the Straits of Gibraltar from here. Chris Parker said we would have wonderful sailing Monday and Tuesday, then we would hit a ridge of high pressure and need to motor 24 – 36 hours before we picked up the winds again after they had veered to the North and strengthened. So far he has been exactly right. The winds are now light and we are motor sailing at 5 - 6 knots with only 1,100 rpms on the engine. To put that in perspective, the engine idles at 800 rpms, so we are barely using it; just enough to keep the sails filled. I figure we are getting about 3-4 knots from the wind and current and the rest from our huge three blade prop.

Sherrin made biscuits this morning during her watch, which is a real treat. We are three on board now, lost one crew member in Horta. When we were four, we kept watch with three crew and one cook. We each stood a five hour watch at night and then each stood a three hour watch during the day, which worked well, but not too much time together. Now that we are three, Jake and I each stand a five hour watch at night – 10 to 3 and 3 to 8, followed by Sherrin pulling 8 to noon, during which she also cooks bread or pies (we hope!), and during the daylight hours we ‘catch as catch can’ on the watches; whoever is up (someone is always above) just keeps a lookout, pretty informally. This system works well as each of us is able to get 8 hours of sleep (the 3 to 8 watch is interrupted sleep, but still gets 8 hours) and we can nap as we please during the day. The really nice thing is that during the day we have time together, and we can keep the meal times reasonable. Jake and I fend for ourselves for breakfast, choosing from fruit, yogurt, homemade granola, boiled eggs, energy bars, oatmeal, or anything else we find in the pantry, and eat our breakfast whenever we are hungry during our watches. Lunch is at about noon, and dinner at about six. Jake and I split the dishes between us on an every other day basis, washing up after dinner before formal watch standing begins. Sherrin is planning meatloaf tonight and a large roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions tomorrow, when the winds will be heavier; just pop it in the oven and forget about it for several hours. When the winds get light again during the last two days, she will get more elaborate in the meals. She is promising us Eagle-Brand lemon pie at some point; can’t wait. She did discover that she had gone through 15 pounds of flour so far and we may have to use some of the specialty flours to make bread and pies; should work out OK, we hope. We had difficulty with the Portugese language labeling so we were not exactly sure what we were buying on some things, but so far it looks like we did OK. Evidently ended up with skim milk instead of whole and don’t know if we have butter or margarine, but the biscuits came out great, so must have done pretty well. We had great difficulty with the meat; but a woman who spoke pretty good English helped translate for us and we did get a couple of nice roasts (hope they are cow, we forgot to ask). Chicken was pretty obvious, but the pork eluded us as far as what cut it was exactly, so we skipped that. There was no sour crème on the island at all. We asked Jeff, who was born in the US, but grew up in Horta and has spent years back and forth between the two and he says it just does not exist on the island; kind of a hardship for his wife who is used to 24 hour Walmarts. So we won’t be making cheesecake, and no sour cream for the tacos, but you have to expect some hardships at sea!
Right now, Sherrin is making bread, Jake is in the cockpit with his ipad, snacking on a biscuit and jam, and I am about to go above and enjoy this beautiful day. I love it when you are in 7,000 feet of water, the sun is shining and the water is that particular shade of blue that can only be found out here in the middle! Will send more tomorrow; btw we send at night when the propagation is better on the SSB, so will not be exactly live transmissions, but pretty close.



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