1st day

Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Fri 25 Jan 2013 13:07
26:17.73N    17:11.43W
 
Friday 25 January 2013
 
Distance Run to 1200  (20 hours)  117 N Miles
 
 
We said our tearful goodbyes on the pontoon to Ian and Judith and motored to the fuel berth to top up the diesel tanks and left just before 4 pm on Thursday to the accompaniment of Ian on his loud foghorn!  Lovely and a great send off.  Very emotional.
 
The first 3 hours were spent motoring against a south westerly wind as the local sea breeze was stronger than the northerlies farther offshore.  When we reached those northerlies we were 20 miles offshore, but still in the acceleration zone between the islands and the winds got up to 30 knots with some stronger gusts.  It was now dark and we were busy furling sails whilst still finding our feet.  We left late in the day to let some strong seas die down but I would recommend leaving in the morning if conditions allow because you can handle all the acceleration zone stuff in daylight and have time to settle the boat down once the northerlies come in.  We brought in the laundry (furled the sails) and eventually sailed under genoa alone as this gave us most control and we didn't want too much sail up obernight.
 
It always takes a day or two to settle down and sleep was hard to come by last night as the sea was pretty lively.  We expected this but still don't like it!
 
The wind is lighter now and so is the sea although it needs to calm some more to avoid emptying the sails with the rolling.
 
We won't pretend it's pleasant but we are moving along and slowly getting accustomed to the motion.  Lin is sleeping just because she hardly slept at all last night.
 
Can't put any photos up yet because it's too rolly to sit down below at the laptop to process them.
 
Will try to update position tomorrow.