Time travel on the good ship Nina......

Ninaofsouthampton
Mon 31 May 2021 16:09
Yesterday afternoon saw us finally meeting up with the predicted cold front and the northerly winds that come with it. Initially the change brought light winds which steadily built in the afternoon and we were all enjoying life on a different tack for a change. Late afternoon saw the wind gradually build and strengthen and Nina was once again flying along towards our destination with the miles dropping.

Overnight we had a bit of everything, ink pitch black skies under full cloud, strong winds easing to hardly enough to push Nina along, clear skies and fabulous stars and eventually even the moon put in an appearance. Each of our night experiences were radically different depending on which watch you were on. However, we all took advantage of the overnight conditions to catch up on some deep and restful sleep in the peace and quiet.

Since dawn, which comes very early but more of that later, the wind has been building and we are now well reefed and charging along again with waves crashing over the bow and coping with life at a 45 degree angle. Obviously this is not good weather for dolphin spotting as we haven’t had any visitations this morning compared to the literally hundreds of them that we saw yesterday. In the meantime, we are focussed on tracking down the catamaran Pivot which remains a teasing distance in front.

Boat time has remained on Bermuda time (which is 3 hours behind UTC) so as we move east we need to adjust boat time to be ready for arrival in the Azores. When you are getting up for your 4am watch and it is light outside it is definitely time to change! We are therefore jumping to UTC and Azores time at lunch time today which means that morning coffee, lunch and tonight’s dinner will all happen in the space of about 4 hours........

So that’s all from the good ship Nina time travellers, as I write we are about 350 miles to go, trim, trim, trim..........

Nick









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