25:14.32 N 23:04.07 W

California Blue
Mark Bashforth / Jayson Bashforth
Wed 28 Nov 2007 17:11
Blog nr. 3 from California Blue - We Got Wind  28/11-07
 
Hello Everyone!
 
Hurray the wind finally came today and we feel like we are sailing in the trades for real now!
 
So here's what's new:
 
Last night's dinner - beef potato burritos ala Vic was awesome. We were so hungry from struggling with the Parasailor all day that there wasn't a scrap of food left - yum yum.
 
After dinner we settled down into our regular routines of watches. It goes dark out here around 18:30-19:00 and the first watch starts at 20:00.
 
We had some decent performance out of the Parasailor given extremely light wind conditions during the night. The wind ranged from 4-10 knots and we managed between 4-8 knots in speed. Pretty impressive really.
 
The problem however was that the wind was very inconsistent throughout the evening varying from 90-160 degrees off of starboard and changed within moments. This meant that whoever was on watch had to constantly (stare till your cross eyed) at the wind angle instrument to ensure that we didn't collapse or foul the Parasailor. During my watch alone I must have adjusted our course over 50 times by changing the course +/- 10 degrees at a time. This occurrence became so common I likened it to a cheap video game "don't drop your Parasailor in the ocean" knowing full well if we did the result wouldn't come cheap!
Bet me I don't buy a Raymarine wind vane driven auto pilot when I get back to Houston!
 
Jayson saw one boat on his watch (20:00-00:00) according to our AIS receiver it was a 140 foot pleasure craft bound for St Maarten. Otherwise we only had the moon for company which we didn't see until after 22:00.
 
Anyway, this morning the weather improved. Chris Tibb's forecast came true and his routing was 100%. We have seen +10 knots wind speeds for the first time since we left Las Palmas. We had California Blue up to 10.7 knots in speed surfing down waves in 12.5 knots of wind. We are impressed and are racking up the miles today. Our average speed today is probably 7 knots.
 
At the time of this writing 16:00 UTC we have sailed almost 500 miles since we left Las Palmas and have about 2200 to go - but who's counting?
 
So today has been all about getting the most out of the wind. If the wind speeds continue like this thru the night we could be looking at a 160 nm in 24 hrs! That would make us very happy indeed.
 
However, there was also cleaning to be done (see the picture of the dishes - poor galley slave) and preparing for tonight's dinner - which by the way is Bratwurst Potato Surprise with fresh crisp green salad as a starter. Think we will do a recipe book after this adventure - NOT! The boys managed to squeeze in some more homework when they weren't sleeping. Must be all the fresh air!
 
No VHF chatter today. Haven't heard a word. We must be out of range from most boats. We passed one sailboat to starboard around 14:00 UTC. Otherwise we are by ourselves.
 
Thanks to everyone for sending us emails. It's nice to hear from you and receive your well wishes - thank you. And thanks Rudy for the Lakers results. Don't slack off again and forget to send them :)  If you haven't emailed us yet please do so (text only and no attachments) the email address is calblue {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com
 
More fun and excitement to report tomorrow.
 
The crew of California Blue
 
 
 
 
 

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image