Day 4 - Bermuda to Azores

Talulah's Web Diary
Paul & Anette Morris
Thu 29 May 2008 18:49
Position "34:31.052N 054:52.241W"

Thursday 29th May 2008

In the last 24 hours we've sailed 140 miles. Not one of the best periods in we consider that most of the distance has been covered in the last 12 hours! We sailed through a trough of low pressure late yesterday evening, and saw lightening all around us. Thankfully, none of it came very close to us, but a huge rain-storm did, and gave us a complete soaking for an hour. Anette was on watch at that time and wasn't a very happy Bunny! After that the winds picked up and have maintained a steady 12 to 18 knots from the South West - which is great! It means that we've been sailing at 6 to 8 knots for the last few hours.

We are trying to get north of 35 degrees of latitude (and out of the Variables), but have been unlucky until now, because of the wind direction and strength. Once we are north of 35 degrees then the wind should be steadier and from a constant direction - that's the theory anyway! The downside of all this is that it is cooler and wetter! Before we started this trip we had thought of going even further north so that we had favourable winds all the way, but we had heard of the risk of icebergs. And this year particularly, there are some icebergs that have drifted further south than the usual limit. And it would have been MUCH cooler and wetter. So we thought that wasn't a very clever idea!!!

Just another 1280 miles to run to Horta now, and our watch-keeping goes on. We tend to stick to 3 hours on watch and 3 hours off watch, with a common "stay awake" time somewhere between 1500 and 2000, where we pretend we're 'normal' for a while and cook, socialise, dry clothing and have our obligatory sun-downers! (the word 'sun' in this context should be taken lightly!). But we put the clocks forward an hour last night which threw everything out!

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