Our transatlantic voyage this year is planned to be made up of four legs. The first leg was from Simon’s Town, South Africa to Luderitz, Namibia, where we are now. It included a brief stop in Cape Town so we could clear out of South Africa. Our next leg will start tomorrow. It will take us to Jamestown, St. Helena, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This leg will be about 1500 nm and we are expecting it to take about 10 days. Next up is a short run up to Ascension Island, a passage of just 700 nm. The last leg will be the longest: about 3200 nm. It will take us from Ascension Island to Grenada, with a nice stop at Tobago so we can enjoy swimming and snorkeling at a quiet tropical island. We have missed that so much.

Today, Greg and I spent the better part of the day installing the antenna and its cable for the Iridium Go. We have it now working. Getting it to work properly and installing the antenna and its cable were quite a chore. Everything, and I mean everything, just takes so much longer to complete on a boat. You have to experience it to really understand why.

While we worked away, the Mary Margaret did one last load of laundry. This meant that Greg and I schlepped some more water so the water tanks are filled up to the top in preparation for our departure tomorrow.

The four of us also went into the yacht club here and all took semi-hot showers. It was wonderful! Thus, we are clean, the boat is filled with fuel and water, the boat projects are done, and the weather looks promising for a morning departure tomorrow. Yea!

Regarding the weather, we are expecting moderate winds in the 15 to 20 knot range. They should stay that way for the better part of the passage but will start to die down some as we get closer to St. Helena. If they do, we are ready to hoist the spinnaker and take advantage of that sail. It should be a downhill sail with the winds mostly off our port stern quarter. At times they may move forward some and that would be fine since we sail best on a beam to broad reach.

We are all anxious to start so keep your fingers crossed for us to have good weather and wonderful winds!