St. Helena to the Caribbean - Day 1
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 13 Jan 2013 12:32
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14:34.555S 07:45.879W
January 13, 2013
Eating an elephant.
Three thousand, seven hundred and fifty miles feels
like a long, long way (especially when typed out in words in
place of numbers). So long, it's best we don't dwell on
it. Instead, we've decided to think about only one day at a time,
at least for now. So, for day 1, we can happily report just
over 150 miles of progress. When planning a passage like this one, we
usually assume we'll sail 150 miles per day, so when actual results match the
plan, we're happy.
We hauled anchor yesterday at noon, and couldn't get out of
there fast enough. The rolling motion reached a crescendo in the
morning and stayed that way until we hightailed it out. What a relief it
was when we deployed the downwind rig and picked up speed. It's not often
that it's smoother at sea than at anchor, but last night we both slept better
during our three-hour allotments than we had in days. Highly unusual for
the first night of a passage. Instead of our standard day 1 groggy
and listless state, we are remarkably chipper. A good start.
Two other sailboats left St. Helena around the same
time. One is headed to Ascension Island about 600 miles to the northwest,
and one is headed to the Caribbean. A third boat will leave St. Helena for
the Caribbean on Monday, so we have a fair amount of company out here, which is
always nice to know. Other than that, we've seen no ships, no airplanes,
and scooped no drunken dead fish off the deck. Tomorrow we hope to scoop a
nice tuna or mahi-mahi off the deck since the schedule calls for fishing to
begin at that time.
Sailing report: smooth sailing at 6-7 knots with 10-20
knots of southeast wind behind us.
Weather report: perfect. Sunny and warm with a
blue sky and puffy white clouds. Our favorite sapphire blue sea has
returned - hopefully it will stick around for a while.
So, what is the best way to eat an elephant?
Most people who know about such things say one bite at a time is best.
Good advice. We'll do the same with this elephant-sized passage - tackle
it one day at a time.
1 down, 22ish to go.
Anne
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