Day 9 Noon Position 21:03.946N 37:59.132W
SeaTrek
Bill and Judy Stellin
Sun 9 Dec 2007 16:43
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Hooray, we are half way across. Right now our
log show we've gone 1335 nautical miles with 1294 left to go. That of
course assumes we take the direct line from where we are now to Barbados.
Weather plays a big role in our day to day meanderings. We started out at
about 28 degrees north latitude and instead of heading directly for Barbados,
went south, looking for trade winds. Right now we are more or less on a
rhumb line course for Barbados and are at 20 degrees 46 minutes north
latitude, quite a bit south of where we started. We may head south even
further as the winds are now very light and could remain this way for several
days.
We had a marvelous night, great winds of just the right
strength and direction. Plus the seas have moderated so we are not being
tossed about like over the past several days. One of the benefits of heavy
weather sailing, is that you have wind. Now with conditions much more calm
the wind is disappearing.
Today we emptied our spare water jugs into the tanks and
found we had only used 15 gallons of fresh water. We still have 100
gallons left. More than enough and for some showers to
boot.
Last nights sailing was like being in a dream.
It was as smooth as being in a train, very quiet and hauling along at almost 8
knots. Our 24 hours mileage total was the best to date at 171 miles.
I hope we have the chance to hit a 200 miler before we're done. It will
all depend on wind strength.
Even though its only been 8 days out, our bodies are
taking a beating. Immersed in salt all the time and getting thrown around
every minute takes a toll. Little sores that don't heal quickly and
bruises that have our bodies black and blue. We had forgotten what a
tremendous amount of work this is. Neither one of us has had any time to
read.
We just try to keep the boat moving and sleep. Today
I slept from about 7AM to noon. What a treat. Wind is very light now so I
have to stop and see what we can do. Earlier we put up the symmetrical
spinnaker and took it down after about half an hour of watching it almost wrap
around the head stay. When we were taking it down, it did wrap and took 45
minutes to untangle. There is simply to much rock and rolling and not
enough wind. We are currently wing and wing and will soon change that so
that both sails are on a port tack and head up, which means we will be going
further south looking for some more wind. I will let you know if it was
worthwhile tomorrow.
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