29/May/2010, 85 Miles to Bermuda - 1,094 miles already logged.
Release the backed foresail! Centre the helm! Haul in the foresail on the right side! .... and we were off after 14 hours hove-to getting rocked, none too gently by some monster waves. The seas are always confused after a bit of a blow. Areas of fairly level, ruffled water, punctuated by enormous pinnacles and pyramids of wind blown wave, some at 20 feet high, most rather less. Before setting off some maintenance jobs had been completed: botching a wind generator wind vane into being a replacement hydrovane vane for the one that snapped off last night, temporary repairs to the radar power socket (flimsy plastic had snapped), drying out the seawater drenched electric autohelm plug and socket, a poorly timed wave as we disconnected last night. These jobs take on major proportions when one needs to get out various tool boxes with large seas causing the boat to surge and drop and lunge. A mixture of being on the Walters and a Roller-Coaster simultaneously comes to mind... but unlike the fairground it doesn't stop after 3-minutes:-)
"Spruce" has been making steady progress towards Bermuda. The confused seas necessitating keeping the speed down for comfort and kindliness to equipment. The sun has often shone, glinting on the white-caps and illuminating a beautiful soaring Shearwater skimming low in our wake to gracefully scoop up a meal disturbed by the turbulence astern.
Our latest hope is to arrive in St Georges tomorrow morning. "Rapau" is sailing some 3-miles astern. We have had a few VHF Radio chats with Keith and Welly this morning and they are in fine spirits after our uncomfortable night. Everybody is exhilarated to be making progress towards our destination. Welly has been asked to gag Keith so we don't have a repeat of yesterday's exclamation "Ooh, this will be our last night at sea!" The Sprucettes will only say the next will be our thirteenth night at sea and we hope our last on this passage:-)
The photo shows Andy hastily reefing the mainsail in 40 knots of wind as the Frontal Boundary reached us yesterday. From harmony to maelstrom in 5 seconds flat.
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29/May/2010, 109 Miles to Bermuda - 1,068 miles already logged.
Gale has blown through during the night, fairly comfortable hove-to and only 5.7 Miles distance lost while drifting. Time for a cup of tea and breakfast while we wait for the seas to become a little calmer and "Rapau" with Keith & Welly aboard to catch up. They hove-to before us and have drifted a bit faster, so are 14 Miles down-track from "Spruce".
During the night we spoke with Bermuda Harbour Radio, via our SSB Radio, they gave us a latest forecast and noted our positions to pass to any shipping in the vicinity. Hopefully we'll still make Bermuda later today but it will be after nightfall. Providing the seas are not too large and the winds arte less we'll enter during hours of darkness, otherwise we'll heave to again and wait for dawn on Sunday.
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28/May/2010, 103 Miles to Bermuda - 1,061 miles already logged.
Currently Spruce and Rapau are both hove-to and drifting about 5 miles apart in Force 8 Winds some 100 miles to the south-east of Bermuda. So near yet so far. The forecast said this would only last a few hours and then we could carry on in ENE 15-20 knot winds.. that would be nice:-) Spruce is lurching in the bigger waves which will continue to grow in stature until the winds moderate in the morning... so will we be able to make port before nightfall tomorrow? Watch this space!
Sorry to major on the weather but it is quite topical for us at the moment:-)
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28/May/2010, 191 Miles to Bermuda - 974 miles already logged.
Lots of Portuguese Man of War jellyfish seen during the day and, this evening, at last, some decent sailing wind! "Spruce" is carving a furrow through the waves, illuminated by a shimmering path of light beaming from the horizon beneath a bright lunar orb. The seas are down to a couple of feet, a damp, cool south-westerly breeze is billowing our full set of sails as we are pushed towards our turning point just north of latitude 30N. Wonderful to be sailing at 5-6 knots in pleasant conditions rather than motoring or fighting the elements. We are still on target to reach Bermuda sometime Saturday afternoon. The latest weather forecast confirms the slow moving frontal boundary, linked to the remnants of the troublesome depression, will pass over "Spruce" at about noon tomorrow. The wind will then move to north-east and should give another decent sailing wind once through the boundary containing winds for a short period. That's the plan anyway. Once through the critical frontal boundary we'll know for sure.
Other vessels out and about. "Heimkehr" arrived in Florida yesterday some 800 miles to our West. "Navigo" & "Amigos" have reachded the Azores. "Talulah" is some 900 miles to the East of Spruce and making excellent progress toweards the Azores, "Aleria" and "Per Mare" are still some way behind but doing their best to catch up. Roy in "Guiding Light" is playing tail-end-Charlie on the Azores trip, with no engine and communications equipment problems. "Elmarleen" is waiting for some wind so they can depart BVIs for Bermuda. "Catacaos" is in Bermuda, "Island Drifter" should arrive in Bermuda today and finally "Festina Lente" left Bermuda for the Azores a couple of days ago but are now beating a windward return to sort out steering gear problems. Many of these are still in SSB Radio contact via the Northbound Net each day and we've all had less than ideal weather. There are links to some of their Blogs from the pick list at the right-hand-side of this Blog. A pivotal time of year indeed, many vessels moving to different cruising grounds, or homeward bound, at the end of the Caribbean cruising season.
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27/May/2010, 299 Miles to Bermuda - 865 miles already logged.
Motoring in lazy swell, sailing in squalls, dodging convection cells, scary lightening. In all, another day of mixed experiences. As we prepared for tuning-in to Herb's (weather guru) Net the skies ahead were darkening, an ominous rumble of thunder rolling across the water from ahead gave the signal to prepare for squally conditions. Reception on the SSB is often affected by lightening storms found beneath large convection cells and yesterday was no exception. The conversation at rtime went something like... Herb: "There is convection activity building ahead at 27 degrees North!". Sprucettes: "We can't hear you. There's a lot of convection activity nearby." With perseverance we got most of the information needed and we are still hurry, hurry, hurrying to get past 30 degrees north by Friday midnight. That is when a band of NE winds will sweep down across the area south of Bermuda and we ate positioning ourselves to not have these on the nose.
No pictures of the tremendous spectacle flaming sunset and lightening strikes at dusk yesterday evening, unfortunately. We had other things on our minds at the time... but here is a piccie of one of the waterspouts seen nearby earlier.
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25/May/2010, 450 Miles to Bermuda - 696 miles already logged.
A busy old day for sail changes. We started with Main and poled out genoa, changed before breakfast to twin-running head-sails, after lunch up went the pretty sail (cruising chute) and mainsail and now we are motoring to get to 27 degrees North latitude for tomorrow evening, where hopefully we'll find some much needed wind. Although we started with 100 hours of range at the last refueling we are down to 74 hours remaining and that isn't enough to motor the whole way to Bermuda.
Visitors today included: Yellow Billed Tropic Birds, one Skua (mobbing the Tropic Birds) and a tired swallow took a rest on the pulpit before flying off again, hope he makes it. Notable sights included major convection activity some 5 miles ahead today, with two impressive water-spouts formed. Thankfully that all dissipated before we got too close.
The tropical depression is predicted to come back south of Bermuda but hopefully much diminished. We therefore expect NE winds of 15-20 knots as we head between 30 Degrees latitude and Bermuda at about 32 Degrees North over Friday night and Saturday. Rapau and ourselves are still in close proximity and are making for 30N63W to give us a better angle on the wind for that last push into port, after almost two weeks at sea. We initially set off expecting a six-day passage!
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