Quiet day on the water
Associate3
Chris & Katie Russell
Tue 21 Nov 2017 16:22
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25:15.22N 19:04.05W
Overnight saw us nearly becalmed as the wind fell light
and then pretty non existent with a lazy drift from the east. As dawn broke we
ordered showers with the generator on to give power to the hot water and
watermaker - the essential ingredients for success for this venture. We all were
starting to smell a bit following 2 days and nights at sea. In addition a full
'fry up' breakfast was delivered by Katie - we all started to feel very good
about ourselves.
The weather has been starting to become problematic with
a big calm laying in front of our chosen southerly route and no hope
of he NE trade winds settling until Saturday. We downloaded some wind files
(grib files to be technically correct) and it started to dawn on us that our
southern route was going to be fraught - we just do not have enough diesel
aboard to motor through the very large calm patch. We therefore reluctantly
decided to motor west to the find wind earlier although this does mean beating
(tacking) through two fronts - one expected tonight and the other in the early
hours of Friday morning. Following that we hope that we will get the trade winds
that we seek - nearly a week after the start. ARC leaving too
early?.....hmmmm
The one advantage to this is that we are more on the
'Great Circle' route that is more direct and cuts some 150 miles (1 day)
off our journey. We are hoping that the pain is worth it.
But we have enjoyed a very calm day aboard the
'Associate all inclusive cruise' with full buffet luncheon (thank you Katie) and
sextant training for all of us from Paul in the afternoon. We have welcomed
a bit of a 'RnR' day and are feeling very up beat about our
prospects.
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