The journey to Venezuela - first 24hrs
Gaviota
Sun 18 May 2008 15:48
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14:40.33N 62:36.89W
Just coming up to the first 24 hour point in our journey south
to Venezuela for the summer. We left St Kitts at 11.40am local
time yesterday, Sat 17 May and had a rather slow afternoon, as expected,
not hitting much more than 5 knots, sailing pretty much directly into the wind,
but at least the sea was nice and flat.
We were surrounded by a large pod of nice fat dolphins late
afternoon - the first we've seen for ages. Some of them had quite pink
tummies, so I wondered if that meant they're pregnant ?
Then about 6pm the wind started blowing 15-20kts from
east-south-east, we were able to adjust to our planned course, directly
southwards and hurtled along at 6-7kts for most of the evening. We did 2
shifts of 6 hours each, using a special alarm timer to wake the person on deck
every 25minutes. The one below tried to sleep on the couch in the saloon -
most comfy due to the heeling that side, but hot, or on our bunk, which was
cooler, but not so secure from the rocking and rolling ! There were some
quieter slower patches during the night, but this morning we've been hurtling
along due south at 6-7 knots again.
No ships or yachts sighted. We've covered 154nm of our
approx 400-mile journey and can see from the chart that we're about level
with Martinique now, but otherwise it's blue sky and sea all the way round the
horizon.
Syd's falling asleep wherever and whenever he can and
Annabel hasn't felt sick, so all well and normal !
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