Day 22 - Passage to the Caribbean
Misterx
Wed 23 Apr 2025 00:21
22/04/25
8:30 pm
Day 22
North Atlantic Ocean
DTD to Trinidad: 1,487 NM (140NM)
Another day punctuated by emptying the bilge every 4 hours and de-weeding the rudder of the wind vane every hour or so. The de-weeding is actually taking place more often if we go through a huge patch of Sargasso, as it skews the vane and we go off course and the genoa flaps. You can feel and hear the Sargasso weed, when we cross a big patch even when you are down below. Guessing we hadn't so far because the wind and waves were more noisy on the beam. Now with the wind on the back, we can hear the hissing of the seaweed. It is quite a disconcerting noise.
We have gone a bit faster today, which means that the weeds have been really compacted on the line that needs to be pulled, and a lot more heavier to lift. Shaking the line is not sufficient anymore, and you have to pull it off with your hand. We need gloves to do the job, the line is taut so cutting the skin and the seaweed is probably full of itchy things. The golden colour is beautiful though, it looks like a carpet of flower in bloom, tiny, tiny yellow bubbles, the floaters, no bigger than a pin head and delicate leaves. We actually have been able to study it quite closely as bits of it are strewn on the deck, hanging in the net of the guard wire, coming up the drain in both the sinks... It gets everywhere.
According to my onshore researcher,
"A newly established population of seaweed, since 2011, driven by shifting wind patterns, is now
thriving in the open ocean. This region is called the Great Atlantic
Sargassum Belt. Massive amounts of Sargasso from this area are transported
west into the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and tropical South Atlantic via
ocean currents". Another article quotes its superficy to be around 5000sq miles, stretching from the
Gulf of Mexico to the west coast of Africa. And we are right in the middle of it and it is not going away!
The wind has been fairly constant all day, and in the right direction. As for the waves they have been quite boisterous at time, especially during the night. Our Weather Guru warns of "a few nocturnal showers and mild squalls (especially 2am-8am), and then coverage of showers / mild squalls increases gradually. These should not be very significant and they should be brief"... and he is correct, weather worsen during the night.
Better go and pull up the seaweed.
M