Day Seven - where is the gulf stream?!
Tripled
Wed 15 Jun 2011 00:03
We are wondering if the gulf stream actually exists as we have seen absolutely no evidence of it. Including a current of 1.5 knots AGAINST us early this evening. Can anyone give us hard evidence of a gulf stream or is it just a myth to encourage sailors?!!
Other than that we have had a pretty good day, sunshine for most of it although obviously clouding over before sunset, no stars again tonight. Also I think the moon has just disappeared this last ten days. We had the genny up for a good few hours, making a lovely speed. James helmed for quite a bit with the genny up. We had about 15 knots and were going very nicely. Then a squall came through quite suddennly, and we had a gust of 29 knots! With Andy at the helm, I was down below and didn't even notice as he helmed us very skilfully through the gust. Although that was the highest, and most of the time it was around 18 knots, as soon as the gust past we decided to take the sail down. Needless to say, as we pulled it into the bag the wind dropped again to 15 knots but as we were still making a pretty nice speed we couldn't really be bothered to put it up again. We also don't want to go too fast as we are trying to time our arrival into Salcombe for first light.
The forecast is for similar weather tomorrow from the SW. Fingers crossed for a lovely last full day at sea. England here we come!