Atlantic Crossing Day 17  - Wednesday  15^th March 2023

The sea state calmed a little in the early evening yesterday (thank goodness) and we thought we were in for an OK night and in all honesty, it was OK, except the swell from the north (beam on) developed again in the morning. It’s been with us all day, so a difficult day for comfort with Stargazer being pushed around a little too much at times. The mate asked if we could do anything about it and I replied only if we get both swell and wave on the quarter which would have us heading for Brazil – and even then, we’d be beam on to some of the ‘wind waves’. So we hang on and steer in the general St Lucia direction as best we can, changing course here and there when a big swell-set develops. Luckily, the forecast is for the wind to calm down towards this evening and through the night. Today the wind has been around 22kn and the forecast is for about 15kn. When the wind calms down the interaction between wave and swell also calms down as they stop ‘fighting’ each other, generally making life onboard far easier and also far easier for the star of the show –Stargazer.

We had the engine running for a couple of hours last night for topping up the batteries and making some more water. I’d gone off-watch at 2000 and I heard the mate creeping around just before waking me at 2300. I can tell by the mate’s stealth movements when something is wrong – and something was wrong! The cabin door opened at 2300 and the mate started all the explanations; it turned out that sometime between 2100 and 2200 or thereabouts the outlet water pipe from the water pump had come off and the remaining water from the starboard tank had emptied itself into the bilges. Luckily, it wasn’t much and the mate, to her credit, had mopped it up. We had a policy of switching the water pump off when not in use for some time – this policy was reinstated immediately! We now have about half a tank on port of Stargazer’s delicious (I mean it) desalinated water and we will make another few litres to put into the starboard tank. This should see us through OK. But lessons have been learnt here, not least about overtreatment of water which initially put our central water tank out of use. As for the pipe coming off the pump – please manufacturers of the world – make standard fittings for things (we have a mix of Jabsco and Whale and you’ve guessed every fitting and pipe diameter is different).

Today has been lovely and warm and sunny, the seas have been big, as I said, but they are calming down now. We reef down at night (possibly a bit too much) but even so, we had a great distance run in the last 24 hours of 155NM - a far cry from the days when we were becalmed. Tomorrow’s forecast looks good for a decent mileage in, hopefully, calmer seas with tomorrow evenings forecast to be quite light airs – meaning we’ll have to motor. As of now, we have around 230NM to run into Rodney Bay and we may have to slow down a bit tomorrow night as we’d like to arrive at first light on Friday and not in the dark on Thursday night. If all goes to plan and we arrive in the bay before noon (our time) then we’ll call the marina and head straight in, if it’s after that time, we’ll probably anchor for the night and have a rest. The reason for this decision is that new marinas, their organisation and checking in etc all take much more time than one thinks.

The mate is having a nap. She cooked a really nice veggie stew/casserole in the Wonderbag yesterday, but she didn’t like it. I offered to do instant mash and baked beans tonight, so she’s decided the Wonderbag meal is pretty good after all…

I have awoken from my nap! I think the addition of the artichokes in last night’s meal was a little brave/foolhardy – especially when I realised they had been tinned in vinegar! It is an evolving stew so I will add some other random veg (not in vinegar) tonight and present it as a new meal :) Still daydreaming about my first meal ashore – which won’t be a veggie stew. I am also dreaming about things being clean. Everything is  covered in several layers of salt – boat, crew, clothes, work surfaces, towels, cutlery, ‘crockery’ etc. Skip was joking about running a competition to guess how long my first shower ashore would be – with guesses invited in minutes, hours or days! Finally, I am also dreaming about this annoying swell from the north disappearing! I am sitting at the chart table writing this with one leg up against the engine bay to keep me from falling off my perch. Maybe tomorrow…