Coyote 2 - The Final Days

We are now in the final miles of our transit of the great Atlantic ocean journey – 279 miles as I write.  It seems though, that we have been in the final days for a while now.  Weather and wind have conspired to slow our progress down and the forecast is not looking all that helpful.  But, with each tick over -600, 500, 400, 300 miles left to go - there is renewed excitement on deck and in our somewhat cozy cabin.  There are excited and exuberant discussions about first drinks, first meals, lengthy and extensive spa visits – oh, and the blessed first and second shower.  But, most often talked of is the return to our own beds – or any bed for that matter.  One that doesn’t roll and lurch unexpectedly, or have a 30 horsepower engine inches from your head, or. read more...

Coyote 2 - Tshirts, shorts and clothes pegs

T-Shirts and shorts was the dress code mentioned in the brochure.  But no. These could be scenes from ‘’Das Boot’.Our floating caravan moves steadily westwards, food and fruit stored everywhere.  People also! (How many people can you fit in a mini?) WET, WET, WET was a name of a similar Band of Brothers and this sets the scene.We see no boats but we are racing them.  Perhaps Captain Matt has a special route to follow.Is the Earth flat or round?Is Matt sailing us to the edge or perhaps to a new continent beyond St. Lucia? Who knows. Does he know?Clean clothes become wet and soiled, later to be recycled as best available.  The girls have the pegs to dry their clothes.  I have only one I reserve for my nose.  This was not in the brochure!Wait a minute, its day. read more...

Coyote 2 - going swimming!

The last days have been very eventful ones… We had a day and a night of constantly raining, after which a lot of our clothes were soaked through. Luckily we woke up to a morning with sunshine. This of course meant that the boat was immediately transformed to a huge dryer for all the wet clothes. After a few hours of poor wind it disappeared altogether. However this in the end was a good thing, because it gave us an opportunity for a small break. Which we used on swimming – in the biggest swimming pool ever! An amazing experience. After all of us got up from the swim we had a visit from two whales, only 25 meters from the boat. Another box checked.Now we are again on the way. We have less than 1.000 miles to go, and most of the time we have good wind and sunshine. But now and again we. read more...

Coyote 2 - The ultimate road trip

We’re just over 1450 nautical miles (2700km) into our trip, and hope to celebrate the halfway point tomorrow.  Suggestions for the party are:  -Fancy dress (though we don’t have any)-Masked ball (but somehow one suspects we’ll still recognize each other)-Moustache party (all the gents are well on the way and the ladies have found a black marker) We will keep you posted.     It’s been several days since we’ve seen another boat (though our modern communications equipment keeps us up to date on the position and progress of others).  The days roll into one another and our little arc seems more like home, as our team becomes more closely knit.  By the time we arrive, we will have crawled out of our bunks for roughly 150 shifts, which make it seem like. read more...

Coyote 2 - one week in

One week has gone since we left the canaries. We have started to get into the routines like cooking food, making tea and doing the dishes. Everything is about teamwork to get the best results. We have started to refill our water storage by the water maker so you fall asleep either from the sound of the engine or the water maker. So now we mostly use the big water storage called the Atlantic sea. We cooked pasta in salt water yesterday but it was no success.The atmosphere on the boat is many happy faces and all nationalities are good. While the days are passing everybody start to feel more comfortable with the weather, waves,sea, helming and the sun that's drying our bodies out! But this has end up with a crew which has been more competitive, one after another reaching the ten knots on. read more...