The gulf stream runs up the east coast of the USA and as it gets further north, swerves around Maine, Nova Scotia and Labrador and heads eastwards to Europe. At the moment the stream is in our path and is pushing us back towards Europe. We’ve had light winds for the last 36 hours and because of this effect are making less headway than we would like, which you will see from the position marks on the map.

 

Since we’re getting closer to the USA now we’ve been using the engine more when there is no wind. Since without it we would head steadily back home, courtesy of the stream. In a quiet spell with very little wind this afternoon we decided to put another two 20 litre cans of diesel into the main tank. This is always a tricky procedure, and after difficulties in years past my mother bought a really easily used syphoning device which is clean, spill free and left behind in the UK by my father. To try and limit spillage I cut out a crude extension tube out of a 2 litre lemonade bottle, to bridge the gap between the mouth of the can and the rim of our large funnel. On the whole this worked very well. The trouble was as my father started the first pour, he had left a moderate gap between the can and the top of the lemonade bottle and as he started to pour a puff of wind caught the diesel, lightly dusting his left trouser leg and hitting me much more square on. He is currently on deck washing out the diesely garments with detergent and sea water.

 

The checks that we have made of the forward sail locker have shown that our two self tapping screws seem to be holding the air vent on the hatch properly closed and keeping seawater out. The inside of the boat is getting much drier (or as dry as a boat gets on passage). We’ve finally come out of the very humid air stream that has left the boat dripping from dusk to dawn with dew and things are drier because of the that too. This has also decreased the amount of fog we’ve been getting.

 

Hamsi

 

40:59.78N 57:11.34W