Transat Day 17 - 10th December 2008 - can this be ... the Trades??
Position: 15:28:90N 47:11:70W Transat Day 17 It seems my whining yesterday was
listened to. During the radio sched
at about 1230, we started to get some breeze from the NE, and, interestingly, so
did everyone else across a 200-mile range, all at the same time. Spooky. After a few hours of wind in the SE, it
swung round and has stayed in the ENE and has been 15-22kts. Lovely!! This is what we
wanted! The mood change is huge (well for
me, anyway!) and it is so uplifting to see the miles being eaten away at each
log entry. We make a log entry every 2 hours, detailing position, course, log,
wind strength, direction etc, so in 2 hrs, anything over 10M is good; and
anything over 13M is superb. We were in visual contact with a
couple of yachts just before the wind came in – “Que Sera”, a Maxi 1100 crewed
by “3 accountants” (their description), and “Paula Rosa”, a Shipman 80 being
delivered to Antigua. We had a good
chat with both and it was good to share the frustrations of the lack of wind and
lack of fuel. We had a couple of seabirds circle
us for 30 mins earlier – very strange birds with a 40cm “tail” which was more
like a piece of string tied underneath each of them. Never seen anything like
it. Night sailing was beautiful last
night – a bright moon shimmering across the sea and Nutmeg roaring along at
6-7kts. In the day, the sea is the
most intense blue which has to be seen to be believed – I’ll try and take a
photo of it. I cooked up a curry as an offering
to the Wind Gods last night, and it seems they liked it as the breeze is still
with us. 804M to go as at noon
today. We’ve started a sweepstake
on arrival times, with the girls being far more optimistic than the boys! My feeling is we will arrive at some
point in the night next Tuesday night – a week away. This means a 23.5-day crossing. Wow – what an epic! A long way off Ed & Genie’s run
across in “Wandering Dream”, a Rival 38 a few years back but then, as of
yesterday lunchtime, only 7 or so boats had actually made it to Sarah should have arrived in
Hope all’s
well Ollie
x |