Transatlantic 1st Day

Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Tue 26 Feb 2013 13:23
16:01.96N  26:17.09W
 
Tuesday 26 February 2013 at 1100 (1200 UTC)
 
Distance Run 89 nautical miles (since 1600 UTC yesterday)
 
Distance to Go 1950 nm
 
We left Mindelo yesterday at 3pm local time after saying a couple of farewells.  Two other boats are leaving today an hour or two after us.  We have agreed to speak on VHF if we can at 8.15pm and am everyday.  Last night's conversation went well but as expected we were already moving out of VHF range of eachother by this morning when we could hear them intermittently but they couldn't hear us.
 
We are aiming first for a waypoint 365 nm SW of Mindelo as we need to get south to avoid a flat calm area which lies on the direct route.  We had a quiet start and speed dropped to 2 knots at times overnight.  The wind increased this morning again and the sea is picking up.  We know that there are some large swells coming from the deep low pressure system hundreds of miles to the north of us but apparently this is a typical feature of the Atlantic and we just have to accept it.
 
That's it for now.