11.03.2015

We are now on the last leg of our trip from Ascension with 2,350 odd miles behind us. This will have been our longest Passage ever. Even when we crossed the Atlantic years ago aboard our 27ft Vega, Jobiska, we took only 21 days. We will start our 22nd day tomorrow and will still have over 600 miles to go.

The first 2 weeks we had annoyingly light following winds in the SE Trades south of the equator. The following few days we were  becalmed and slopped and motored our way through the doldrums. Crossing the equator eventually brought a change. In the last few days we have found the NE Trades which should carry us all the way to the Caribbean. However, they have been over enthusiastic giving us 25 to 30 knots and over with grey moist skies. We would be happy with that but it has kicked up nasty short seas with waves higher than our bimini at about 3.5 metres.

Today the wind has decreased and we have a more normal and more manageable 16 to 20 knots giving us good speeds. The trouble with the stronger winds is that we have to reef well down and the boat then gets bullied by the waves and our speeds are reduced. It is also very uncomfortable for the crew.

At least we have had no breakages other than the tear in the mainsail that we repaired successfully … so far. Some English friends on a boat a bit ahead of us have had 2 major problems. First their freezer stopped working and as meat eaters they had to rapidly cook all their meat and chill it in their fridge which happily is still working. Their other problem is one that all short handed cruisers dread.. failure of the autopilot.. In their case the pin holding the ram to the steering quadrant failed. Fortunately they only had 2 days left to their landfall, but for all that time they had to steer by hand, really exhausting in big seas.

On Gryphon 2 we have a Hydrovane which is totally independent of the boat's own steering systems and will steer the boat reasonably well in most conditions, Modern boats like ours are skittish and need a constant watch, unlike in the days of Joshua Slocum when boats were designed with long keels and could be left to their own devices for long periods simply with a lashed tiller. Our Hydrovane is not as good as its electronic counterpart but, if the boat is carefully balanced and one does not expect great course accuracy, it will do the job. It copes really well either going upwind when the boat can be balanced very easily or downwind if we have twin headsails. Anything in between is more of a problem ...but at least we hope we never have to steer hour after hour by hand.

We have seen very little in the way of anything over the days. We passed a ship earlier today and another 2 days before. It is difficult to stay alert on watch when there is so little about but fortunately our AIS works well and gives us good warning of ships. Fishing boats are not normally equipped with AIS but so far we have only seen one.

As for sea life we have seen very little. Lorraine had a visit by a pod of dolphins and there are plenty of flying fish skittering about. Oddly the sea is full of an orange seaweed in clumps up to 15 metres across and in smaller patches dotted everywhere. The only other place we remember seeing so much weed was in the calm of the Sargasso Sea . Here it seems to survive in these rough waters, which begs the question of why there is weed here but not in other tropical seas. It may be that the Amazon brings down nutrients that the weed thrives on. However if this is the case then one would expect there to be fish in abundance too but there seem to be few.

We have been unable to fish for the last few days as it has been so rough that dealing with the catch would be almost impossible. Preparing food and cooking are major athletic tasks even under the better conditions we are having today..Lorraine has still managed today to cook beetroot, bake bread, make houmous and produce a delicious vegetable egg and cheese bake ...all with the boat surging along at 6 knots in a lumpy sea.

So we have not spoken to another soul for 3 weeks. Annoyingly our short wave radio seems to have a fault which means we can hear other boats but they cannot hear us. The nearest boat we know of is over 750 miles away and most of the rest we can hear well over 1000 miles away but we should be able to reach them. It is probably a minor aerial problem ...but not easy to do much exploration with the current conditions. Fortunately we are still able to send and receive emails via our satellite phone. That's also how we receive the Grib files that give us a good idea of the weather to come. It looks as if we should have the conditions we have currently until we reach Trinidad in 4 or 5 days time. We keep our fingers crossed.