Great Great Circle route

Moonstone of Aberdour
Allan and Claire Foster
Thu 16 May 2019 11:35
“34:48.044N 56:39.743W:
Our track from Bermuda to the Azores may now be starting to appear as a gentle curve on Google Earth as we are following a Great Circle Route, the shortest distance between any two places on the Earth’s round surface.  We have an interesting paper chart on board where Great Circle Routes are plotted as straight lines using a conical projection......fortunately modern electronic charting software draws Great Circles automatically and saves me lot of work.
Today is nearly calm so we have started to use some of our precious tanks of diesel.  We set out with enough fuel to motor if necessary for about 50% of this passage and with the area near to the Azores being famous for its high pressure and notoriously light winds we don’t want ourselves becalmed as we near the end of the passage, so careful calculations are made daily to ration ourselves and seek out good winds to sail by.  We are now approaching the back of the Cold Front that gave us a rough ride on Tuesday night.  It has stalled and if we head into it there should still be strong winds to give us a boost in the right direction.
Last night was a little worrying as lightning surrounded us from dusk to dawn and the low cloud cover seemed to make the flashes fill the sky.......at times like that we hide all our electronic devices in the oven in case we are struck.  The oven supposedly works as a Farrady Cage to protect our electronics from fatal shocks.......emphasis on supposedly......I have just reminded Claire not to light the oven without a good check first!