24/May/2010, 541 Miles to Bermuda - 614 miles already logged.
At last! We are going North towards Bermuda again, albeit rather slowly with only a 10 knot wind from the South. Spruce has a full mainsail out one side and a poled out genoa (front sail) on the other. The swell is large and lazily rolling in from the NE from the gales up near Bermuda for the past few days. To make our way-points as we sail towards Bermuda we really need to travel 110 Miles per day, if we don't get more wind through the night we may need to motor to make up some ground tomorrow. Therein lies the quandary, if we don't catch up time we may continue with only light or no wind, if we start burning fuel we may not have enough left if we meet calms nearer Bermuda.
The day has been fine and sunny, too hot on deck. It has been wonderful to open the boat up while under-way and to dispel the damp from sailing in strong winds and the torrential downpours of a couple days ago.
Highlights today: Bread baked on board, a hot oven at these latitudes is not pleasant but the bread smelt divine; crossing the Tropic of Cancer for the third time in less than a week... lets hope we can keep pressing on Northwards. The Tropical Depression is scheduled to turn East later in the week, the weather experts can't predict if it will go North or South of Bermuda. We hope North otherwise we may have to heave to again and let it pass on by.
Photo is sunset tonight. Spectacular!
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23/May/2010, 591 Miles to Bermuda - Hopefully decreasing again today .
517 miles sailed, only 10 (drifted) in last 24-hours! Still waiting for the nasty tropical depression located some 200 Miles north of us to show a definitive track instead of just hanging there without a clear destination in mind. Good weather info from weather-guru, Herb, again yesterday. Next update at 20:00 utc today. We'll probably make our way tentatively northwards by 30 Miles during the day and then, hopefully, the weather system will have commenced moving North and we can start making for Bermuda. The worry now is the wind might die away at our location and we only have fuel enough to motor about 450 Miles.
Yesterday's convection activity was truly awesome. We have never seen rain at that scale. a torrential downpour that just wnet on, and on, for hours. We managed to scoop up about 20 gallons of fresh water, running along the scuppers, directly into the water tanks in approximately 10-15 minutes. The bad news is we haven't been this damp since NW Spain last July.
The photo shows "Island Drifter", also waiting around, to head North, in this vicinity, with Mike and Helen Norris aboard.
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22/May/2010, 579 Miles to Bermuda - and still increasing .
So far we have sailed 507 miles but some of it in the wrong direction! The tropical depression is near fully formed and predicted to start moving to the North and slightly West tomorrow. Heading back south has kept the Sprucettes and Rapaulettes away from the worst of the weather on the NE side of the depression. There has been a series of convection cells passing by, and over. The latest humdinger gave winds of between 38 and 44 knots for 10-15 minutes with torrential downpour conditions.
The feedback from weather-guru, Herb, yesterday afternoon indicated we should be able to tentatively commence heading North again either later today or tomorrow morning. That should enable us to tuck in astern of the depression as it begins tracking northwards and stay in South-East to South then South-West winds. We'll stop sailing south inn then next hour or so and heave to to wait it out for the rest of the day... sucking in weather information while we drift.
On the bright side ... we should get to Bermuda by Thursday:-) The photo reminds us of the sunrise we haven't seen for 3-days.
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20/May/2010, 470 Miles to Bermuda - and increasing .
A big focus on the weather with a deepening depression heading towards Bermuda. Herb's weather net advised us to get south of 24 N degrees latitude and wait for up to 48hrs. With gales now forecast 120 miles north of our position we are only to pleased to take that advice. There are now three vessels within 3 miles of each other waiting for the depression to go off to the NE and clear away from our planned track: "Rapau", "Spruce" and "Island Drifter". The photo shows us receiving a weather fax (via the SSB radio) of a North Atlantic Synoptic chart this morning.
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18/May/2010, 160 Miles north of British Virgin Islands
The wind has reduced to around 10-15 knots during today which has let the size of the seas drop as well, much more comfortable. Just lately the wind has gone a bit more to the NE so we are on a fetch (close reach) with the wind about 50 degrees off the bow. The forecast promised the winds would go more ESE tomorrow morning so fingers crossed for that and no increase in strength tonight. All is well aboard the Little Green Boat, Egg and Bacon butties for breakfast and tasty bagels with cheese and salad for lunch. Another pasta bolognaise this evening. Its all about then menu out here when the weather improves:-)
Starting to see bits of Sargasso Weed drifting by, that is meant to be a feature on this passage along with Portuguese Man of War Jellyfish, but none of those nor large cetaceans yet. The piccie is of the vessel the "Humbolt Express" altering course to pass close astern (instead of over the top of us:-)) this morning.
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18/May/2010, 100 Miles north of British Virgin Islands
Wind has stayed pretty constant through the night and the seas have built to 10 feet with dollops & lumpy bits that seem adroit at throwing themselves against the hull, splashing into the air and blowing across the boat on the occasion one looks above the parapet... refreshing and unwanted:-) Good phosphorescence tonight, sparkling beads of light in the wake alongside the boat. A couple of ships passing towards Europe, one, the "Star Care", was on a convergent course so we called up on the VHF radio to check they could see us on radar. The officer on Watch kindly altered course to give us a wide berth. When we called the merchant ship "Rapau" (Keith & Welly) heard our conversation and reported themselves 7 miles to our east.
Another hour and it will start to get light and mark the end of our first night watch en-route to Bermuda.
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