27 15N 62 00W

Osprey
John Bowering
Sun 25 Nov 2007 16:36
A thoroughly disturbed night with the wind vanishing during Sean's 8 - 12. Having followed our usual proceedure of reefing down for the night at dusk we then had all hands on deck to re set all but 35% of the 135% Genoa. The position did not improve during Smitty's watch and it rained for a couple of hours as well. At 0400 we started the motor and motor sailed at 1200 rpm which produced 7 knots as well as charging the batterries. We kept this up for a couple of hours before the wind started to stabilise from the north East. We are hoping we have found the start of the trade winds!!. Our position is at 1200 local or 1600 Zulu and we are maintaining a course of due south and are approximately on Antigua's meridian now. We are in contact with Icini at 0800 and 1800 and the SSB HF radio is working extremely well. We are out of range of her on VHF as she is some 50 miles behind us. They do an amazing job in a 39ft boat with two very young children on board. The kids have "school" every day and seem to love it. Both mum and dad are very outdoor people being mountain climbers as well as divers. They have been on the boat now for a year and intend one more before returning to the UK. Jonathan would have loved this end of the trip, the weathe is now lovely and warm and with steady winds the boats motion is stable. Smitty has taken Jonathans place in making breakfast that would fill an elephant and would really keep me and Sean (but not him) going all day. He is a tremendous character and with our ex diplomat Sean on board there are many lively and very very diverse debates. If we are right and have the start of the trades we have probably run out of work for our great weatherman, Bob Cook in Florida and Sirius, our on board satellite weather system is providing good and accurate details

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