Day1 Departure and Start

Kirofbrixham
Fri 7 May 2010 14:04
As we prepared to depart Nanny Cay Marina a Swedish couple I had got to know came down to wish us goodbye and gave us a bottle of bubbly for our arrival in the UK, lovely kindness.
 
We had to say goodbye to Grae's wife Patti who has been a great help in food and general organisation of KIR.For me it was a great sadness leaving yet another Port that feels like home, and of course the Caribbean. I have loved my time here and the people who have been so friendly.
 
We had perfect weather at the start nice force 3 ENE and sunny. The first leg was down wind and we had the main out and motored sailed ourselves to the front of the fleet. However once we turned North as we rounded Great Thatch island off went the motor and we started sailing proper. The wind was strongish and now coming over our starboard side as we head North to Bermuda, only 850 miles away.
 
Host van Dyke the Northern island of the BVI's created a wind shadow but once through that we started to romp along at 6.5 to 7 Kts,  fast for us.
 
The skipper produced a culinary master piece in the form of a chilly and rice.We are also into our water saving using a mix of fresh and salt water for washing up.
 
Generally we are doing very well and the night just had us reducing sail as we picked up some stronger wind. Its interesting trying to find the right rope in the dark, but I now have a head lamp with red and white LED's to aid the sight courtisy of Grae and Patti. At 0100 we got the light from the moon which helps as well. That's it for now except say we have covered 150 miles since starting in 22hrs which is very goodas we would expect that in 24hrs.