It's now 1400 on Saturday and onward we press. Mother Nature isn't helping out taking just about all of our wind. We are pretty much just sitting still in a rolling sea. The swell left over from the storm this morning aren't bad but it's a long way from a flat sea. I caught a nap late in the morning with our Yamaha generator purring away on deck. Cheaper and more efficient than running the engine. After a couple of hours the batteries were topped up again and now we are set for another couple of days. As of now, we have no course and no speed. We are just floating boat on an empty ocean. The ship we saw this morning is long since gone and it was the first one we have seen in a week. How's that for empty. One good thing to report though is that one of the dinghies that blew out to sea a week or so ago from Chagos Atoll was found by another cruiser yesterday just floating along in the wind. Don't know the entire story but it is. Now back with it's owners. That's about it for now but there is always more coming.
The winds stopped this afternoon. Between about 1000 and 1700, we did about 7 miles! What a slow day. As the Sun was setting, we were sitting on the stern deck as poor Zephyr was slowly rocking back and forth in the swells. There were storms brewing off our stern port side which seemed to be where we figured the wind, if it was going to com, was going to come from. We got Zephyr ready just as the Sun was setting for the blow we thought was coming and about 2100, it finally arrived. Winds were a steady 15 knots and we zipped along heading west at a good 5 knots plus. That lasted till 2145 when the winds again dropped off. We now have 4 knots off wind and are back to doing just over 2 knots! Up till this last blow, we had done about 7 miles for the day! We are at least still heading west but at this rate, it's going to be a long time before we reach the Seychelles. The Sun is now down and the moon is up. Let's see what the night brings. Stay tuned.
Ok, it's now 1130 on Sunday the 24th. The night passed with a storm brewing off our portside as I came up on watch at 0300. I buttoned up the sides of the dodger/bimini and closed all the portlites and hatch. We were ready. What came was different. A decent amount of wind to speed us on our way. As I wrote above, we'd done 7 whole miles during the entire day. Suddenly we were doing in the mid 5 knot range in speed and getting faster. Our Hydrovane(wind driven auto pilot) was doing great. I just sat in the cockpit and let him do his job. He steered us straight and true for the couple of hours the blow lasted. In the end, by 0530, it was over and we drifted back to a simple 5 knots of wind from the 16 we had had. Back down to just 2 knots of boat speed. Once I got up from my nap,and we got some jobs done on board, we pulled down the forestaysail and pulled up the spinnaker. Now lets see what we can do.