Spindrift ARC Log - Day 18

Austins' Travels
Chris & Lynn Austin
Wed 7 Dec 2011 18:23
We continued at 5 knots Tuesday afternoon and all night. By evening there
was general cloud cover and the temperature had dropped a bit and there was continuous
rain - very like sailing in Britain except that the temperature is 25
degrees. This rain cleared overnight and eventually the moon broke through.
It was then a very sedate sail at 5 -6 knots with the sea much calmer so
everyone caught up on sleep - thankfully as several of us had had almost
none the previous night. In the morning we raised the larger headsail and continued at about 6 knots - sometimes 7, sometimes 5 - on a very calm sea for the rest of the day. By the late afternoon the wind was starting to die off and we had heard on the radio that other boats that are 50-100 miles ahead of us were suffering lack of wind. A low pressure system has developed near the Leeward Islands just north of the Windward Islands that we are heading for and this may have affected our recent weather and will exist for the next few days so the standard trade winds may not be the dominant factor. It seems possible that we'll be motoring before long. But for the moment we are still just about sailing at 5 knots in calm seas and enjoying beautiful blue skies with very, very blue water.
The fishing is difficult as there is a surprising amount of seaweed appeared and constantly snags the hook.
It is getting very hot down below with little air circulating (and quite smelly after nearly three weeks of 5 blokes sweating into their sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, etc!).
We expect to be arriving on Sunday (but don't count on it).