01 June 2015

Another birthday at sea for the first mate and the best present was passing the first 500 mile mark of our charted course during the late evening. Downloading birthday emails from Hattie and Peter was very special as was beating the skipper at Scrabble with an all time high score of over 400, it always helps to draw the Z.Q,X and J. No cakes – too bouncy!

We have seen a couple of lights over the last few nights together with the radar signals of two ships and a large B Class sailing yacht but too far off for the naked eye to see so our horizons have seemed empty. However, we know some of the yachts en route to the Azores from the short wave radio traffic we encounter every day including the weather support broadcast each evening which is a strict listening time for us. There are currently five other yachts within a 400 mile radius of Gryphon II, 4 that left from the Caribbean before us which are 2 Swedish, 1 German, 1 American and then another English yacht coming up straight from the Cape Verdes.

Since our smooth start we have been skirting the edge of the recalcitrant trough that is throwing up endless messy squalls which in the case of our position have been quite manageable. However, one yacht ahead has had four miserable days and a very short spell of 60 knot winds to contend with 2 days ago. Another, which left 6 or 7 days before us, has sadly turned back to the Caribbean because they had so many squalls to deal with that they had been heaving too at night for relief and making little progress which was depressing for them. We were less than 100 miles away when they turned about and feel sorry for them on their return journey as they will encounter the squalls that we are leaving behind. They head now for the hurricane free belt down at Trinidad and will decide what to do as they recover.

The last squall for us has just ended leaving us with a lumpy sea so our old friends thump and crash are back and in fact we have just had a good thrashing with heavy rain leaving the air damp and the decks salt free. The great hoot in this part of the ocean is that we know that in a week or so we might be wishing for a bit of this push as the winds drop away in the high pressure zones nearer to the Azores.

It is definitely cooler but the only good thing about that is that the Sargasso weed isn't just going, it seems to have gone. The clouds behind have cleared and a brilliant full moon has risen; the sky and the sea are just gleaming with silver light which will hopefully be with us for a few more nights to come. Such a treat!