Halfway to Gibraltar

S/V Galatea update
Neil Scott
Sat 22 Apr 2017 04:22
It is 04:00 on Saturday 22nd. We are now just over half way between Ponta Delgada, Azores and Gibraltar with 480 miles left to go. Unfortunately we have had no wind the past 48 hours and so have been motoring non-stop since then. Luckily the water is smooth, albeit with decent sized swells at times, and we have been able to make good speed.

At our current heading and speed we should be able to get to the Gibraltar side of the Straits by Tuesday morning. It would then be another 240 miles to Cartagena, Spain where I am contemplating leaving Galatea for the off-season later in the year. Again, at current speed, that would have us arriving into Cartagena by late Wednesday, or early Thursday morning. But "current speed" assumes no hiccups along the way and we have just been alerted to a possible coldfront hitting the Spanish/French coastlines late Tuesday into Wednesday bringing gale force winds to the area between Gibraltar and Cartagena.

So, we will make a decision on Sunday as to whether we stop in Gibraltar after we receive an updated forecast from Commanders, our weather forecasting and routing service.

Otherwise things have been going well. Wally has caught up with his rest and has immediately elevated the level of cuisine served on Galatea with his culinary skills, a number of dolphins swam along-side our bow for a good while this morning, we spotted a sizable water-spout/tornado about 2 miles off our stern earlier this evening - lucky it died out and never threatened us, and a young swallow flew into the cockpit around 8:30pm to take a break from his long, tiring migration - he is resting between one of the winches and the bimini.

Ok, that's it.

Neil, Kev and Wally



- S/V Galatea
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