Hummingbird - Day 3 blog - where has the wind gone?

Not long after the sun rose this morning the wind had dropped a little too low for our poled-out headsail to remain effective. Our never-before seen lightweight spinnaker was swiftly wooled, flung on deck, and whipped up to the top of the mast - with perhaps a little over-eager wooling requiring a few persuasive tugs on the sheet before the kite would burst. It may only be day three, but we’re all beginning to feel totally au fais with the art of spinnaker hoisting and it’s many quirks. No doubt we’ll be Volvo Ocean Racing standard by St Lucia!

We all gathered in the cockpit at lunchtime for a passage update from navigator Chris, who relayed the light and fluffy weather forecast to us and put a few routing options to the group vote: 1. donkey on and skedaddle out of the wind hole, 2. gybe towards the coast of the Western Sahara in pursuit of more breeze closer to shore, or 3. stay put and whistle for the wind. There was a near unanimous decision on gybing, presumably with dreams of the Lion King soundtrack emanating from the African desert being the deciding factor. Double-pole gybe perfectly executed in our usual laid back manner with bow monkey double-act John and Fraser leading the foredeck, we were all strongly advised to shower (hint hint) and settled in for an afternoon of chasing the wind.

Fast forward to now, 2300 UTC, and our average speed over the last few hours has been less than 2.5kts, and anytime the spinnaker fills for a second or two is a major cause for excitement. We may be fighting to sail, putting up with the creaks and groans of the rigging, taking any tiny motion further south as a victory; but that is not to say tonight is anything but idyllic. The sea is so totally flat that when three dolphins visited us at a watch change over you could make out their entire outlines in the phosphorescence… magical. The moon took a long time to rise, finally shedding some dusty orange light on the horizon where before there was pitch black nothingness. We think the visibility may have closed in for a while as the air became damper, but it was so unimaginably dark it was hard to tell either way. The Milky Way is creating its own celestial equator between the constellations, and shooting stars have been leaving behind sparkling trails similar to those of the dolphins in their wake.

We may not be stonking along at impressive speeds right now, but we'll certainly "settle" for this beautiful, moonlit North Atlantic ocean crawl over motoring any day.

Holly