Last night I fell asleep in the cockpit and when the boat rolled pitched headfirst down the companionway, a drop of about six feet. I woke in a painful heap on the galley floor. All I can say is that I was really lucky to get away with just grazing and bruising. I will admit to feeling a lot older, frailer and somewhat mortal today. At times like these I am ever more grateful to be with Annie. On reflection it was a fairly obvious hazard and from now on we will keep the companionway hatch closed and sit on the leeward side of the boat on night watch.

My son Oliver is coming out to sail back to the Azores with me. He is keen to sail the Atlantic and it will be great to have him aboard. As ever when planning for someone to join the boat we have to work around the necessarily flexible timescales for sailing with someone on a much more rigid timetable. There are two routes from Antigua to the Azores. The southerly route roughly follows the rhumb line before picking up the Azores high and can require sailing into the wind before the high. The northerly route starts by sailing north towards Bermuda before picking up westerly wind for the sail across to the Azores. The southerly route takes three weeks, the northerly route a little longer. However the major issue for the North Atlantic is the low pressure systems that develop off the NE coast of the US. One of these can affect both the southern and northern routes as it develops and moves eastwards. Forecasting three weeks ahead is unreliable and one way to introduce more certainty is to take 8 days or so and sail to Bermuda before heading east to the Azores.  An advantage of the northern route is that if there is no good weather window developing for the run to the east you can stop in Bermuda and wait until one arrives.

All this means that Oliver can join us in Antigua if we think there is a reasonably good weather window, and from where Annie will fly home, or Annie can sail with me to Bermuda and Oliver can join me there for the shorter but more certain passage. It will need to be a fairly last minute decision!

A further complication, albeit a similarly nice one to have, is that Annie’s daughter Charlotte would like to sail back from the Azores with us. She has fixed dates in June that she can take off work but we cannot be certain of our arrival date in the Azores. And of course even if we do coincide there is no guarantee of an immediate good weather window to undertake the passage!

It’s lovely that family wish to sail our final passages and means we have a busy couple of months coming up keeping the boat going, arranging crew changes and sailing the last legs of our journey.