April 8th Clearing Out of Antigua & April 9th Day One at Sea

Lowena
Michael & Amanda Dyer
Tue 5 May 2009 10:18
We were about to go ashore to clear out when Ian from 'Ariel', a wylo,
came alongside and we chatted. He and Kathy had just arrived from S
Africa after 54 days at sea! Later we went over to their boat and
listened to their adventures of the past five years circumnavigating the
globe.
We went ashore, cleared customs, bought fresh fruit & Veg from Aubrey in
the market. We went alongside 'Lister Light' to donate our last EC
dollars for their research 'EPIC', Environmental Protection in the
Caribbean. A project they are carrying out surveying the breeding
seabirds of the Caribbean and raising environmental awareness there.


Up at six. A Cloudy & Miserable day to leave. Outside the anchorage
the 3rd reef outhaulwrapped itself around the lazy jacks as a squall hit
us. We motorsailed to begin and made 2-3knots into the wind and sea.
Then after 2 hours we both thought the engine sounded noisy and then it
spluttered and we stopped it. Mike quickly suspected dirty fuel and
took off the filter and the fuel was indeed gunky.
He cleaned the filter, pumped the fuel back up to the lift pump. She
fired up and hopefully will be ok. We are presently steering 030- 040
degrees toward our first waypoint 185 miles north. The general pattern
is you sail north for 5 or 6 days until the wind begins to veer and get
as much east in as you can, when you can. The trades are predominantly
easterly sometimes north of east sometimes south of east. Once you
reach 30-35 degrees north the wind veers and you can head east. (That
is the theory!)

It is still overcast and the sea is 5-6ft, wind ESE, enabling us to get
some east in. The forecast for Easter Weekend is 15-20k and seas to 9ft
wind ENE.