Day 4 - Bermuda to Guernsey

Stravaig'n the Blue
Sun 29 May 2022 12:32
Position: 35:48.2 N 057:30.6 W
Position timestamp: Saturday 28 May 2022 14:00 (UTC-3)
Distance travelled in last 24 hours: 130 NM (average speed 5.4 knots)
Reduction in distance to destination: 122 NM
Shortest distance to destination: 2501 NM (great circle)

Good progress in the last 24 hours. We reduced the distance to our destination by one mile more than our target of 121. (Ignore the fact that I said 125 in an earlier post!)  It was a bit touch and go though because there was very little wind from sunrise and no wind whatsoever at 9:30 so we switched off the autopilot, locked the wheels and just drifted north on the current for a couple of hours. The wind then filled in from the south at 10 to 15 knots which allowed us to set our reaching gennaker and mainsail and we’ve been tanking along at eight to nine knots since then.

Today’s excitement was chatting to Bill on US sailing vessel Nereid (pronounced nerry-id), MMSI 367690070. Nereid had popped up on our chartplotter at 2am this morning, about 15 miles to our north, but we lost her as our paths diverged. However, she appeared again this afternoon and we decided to call her when we got close (five miles) as our paths crossed. I’d just picked up the mic to call when Bill beat me to it!

Nereid is a 28ft Pearson Triton. This is quite small boat to be crossing the Atlantic but she was making over seven knots at times, impressive for a boat of her length. She is of mid 60s vintage so it was unsurprising that Bill had spent much of the last two years in a boatyard on the Florida / Georgia border, working on a partial refit. He is on his way, solo, to Civitavecchia, just north of Rome. His route had taken him north using the Gulf Stream and then east from Cape Hatteras. Although he hadn’t stopped in Bermuda, he was planning to stop in Horta in The Azores.

After a couple of cloudy days, we celebrated today’s fabulous sunny weather with Häagen-Dazs almond and chocolate-coated vanilla caramel ice creams.

All is well.

Allan