Day 11 - Bermuda to Guernsey

Stravaig'n the Blue
Sat 4 Jun 2022 23:13
Position: 40:28.6 N 038:55.0 W
Position timestamp: Saturday 4 June 2022 14:00 (UTC-2)
Distance travelled in last 24 hours: 151 NM (average speed 6.3 knots)
Reduction in distance to destination: 139 NM
Shortest distance to destination: 1618 NM (great circle)

Yesterday, thinking that we were done dodging the high winds that come with the Atlantic lows as they head eastward, we studied the latest forecast, came up with a revised routing and altered course directly for Guernsey. The wind has been in the high teens to low twenties and we have made good progress.

This morning, we received an email from Tim alerting us to a small but intense low pressure system, currently near Bermuda and heading towards Ireland, that will overtake us some time on Wednesday when its centre will be close to where our new routing will take us. The forecast is for locally sustained wind speeds of over 40 knots and max gusts of 60 knots. Forecast average wave height is 7.5m (at worst). We need a new plan!

We certainly don’t want to be anywhere near the centre of this low and we’d prefer not to be at sea at all while it passes. So we are making our way towards Flores, the closest of the nine islands of the Azores archipelago. Flores is 380 miles from where we were at 2pm today and about 400 miles south of the low’s forecast centre on Wednesday

Getting to Flores in daylight on Monday would have been a bit of stretch so we have slowed down so that we get there at daybreak on Tuesday. That will give us plenty of time to find a good anchorage on the east side (our pilot book says there are several) and prepare the boat for what will still be a windy Wednesday.

All is well.

Allan