Monday 8th of May

Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Mon 8 May 2017 18:31
28:18.7N, 055:10.0W

Lovely sailing at present, and almost in the correct direction for Horta. If the high pressure region near us develops as forecast we are in a good place to move east with a favourable wind. It will probably still leave us on starboard tack, however we may be able to come off the wind some degrees which would make life aboard a little easier. Not that it’s too hard really. We had a fabulous afternoon of sailing yesterday with completely clear skies, blue seas, and a warm force 4 wind. (albeit from ahead). The days are still hot in the sun but the heat is leaving the boat earlier and earlier and at night we’re sailing in boots, socks, trousers and jumpers which at first came as a bit of a shock. The choppy seas are declining with the wind, so at last the underlying very long wavelength swell can be seen.

Another benefit of the calmer seas is that we can run the water maker to top up the tanks, which should give enough for proper showers. Unusually, almost unheard of when on passage under sail, we have a surfeit of electricity due to the wind self steering working well on this point of sail, and so the towed generator plus solar panels can make more than we use.

Since our vegetable net snapped recently and we re hung it in the main cabin we have not had any of more going off. This is a relief as its still not clear how long we are going to take to get to the Azores. We have been passing through patches of Sargasso weed as should be expected, being in the ‘horse latitudes’. It’s not very dense however, just the odd patch about 25cm across.

We had contact last night via short-wave with Jon (G4ABQ), and will try again tonight.