19.41N 046.40W 19th May 2011
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Thu 19 May 2011 13:01
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Another day in the Atlantic. We are all looking
forward to seeing a mountain but this is still some time off. It's a little like
"Groundhog Day". Every day we wake up [for those who have slept] to us sitting
in the middle of a huge circle of water which reaches to the horizon. No matter
how we try we are never able to move from the middle of the circle. The sun, the
moon, several storms and the stars pass over us but our position, other than the
marks we make on a chart, never seems to change. It is the marks we make on the
chart and the countdown on our chartplotter that keeps us focussed
on our goal and as each day passes we seem to inch closer to our
destination. Does it sound as though I'm complaining, I'm not!! I think we
are all looking for the end now though.
Conditions eased around lunchtime yesterday. The
swell dropped away and winds moderated. We had good sailing most of the
afternoon and into the early evening.
As the sun set we noticed clouds building in the
sky to the east and wondered if some more of those localised storms were
brewing. Sure enough within a few hours we had several bearing down on us. We
did all we could to avoid them but they seem to hunt in packs and at one point
we were sitting in the middle of a cluster of them. Eventually two of them ran
us over in the space of a couple of hours. At night they are hard to see and it
would be impossible without radar. On the radar screen you get a nice liitle
graphic of your
boat and the storms appear like islands about
the size of Rottnest. The only issue is the islands move and pack 24+ knots of
wind and torrential rain, as we found out again last night.
It is easy to see how this area can give birth to
the massive Hurricanes that wreak havoc in place like the Caribbean and The USA.
We are in late May so the warmer months are yet to come. The water temperature
is around 27 degrees and there must be a massive amount of evaporation
throughout the Northern Hemisphere summer. I did check before leaving Albany on
the chances of a Hurricane developing. There has only been one Hurricane in May
in 100 years and this occured on the 29th May, if my memory serves me correctly.
I'm not sure it would have been wise to leave it much later
however.
Our fresh food is just about all gone so it may be
pasta, pasta, pasta from now on.
All onboard are well but looking forward to
land.
Yesterday we made another 139NM [the same distance
for 3 days in a row] and continue under geneker and jib with the wind at our
backs.
880 nautical mile to Antigua and
closing!!
We have heard that several people are following the
blog at home. This is fantastic. Writing the blog is fun and breaks up the
day, and we feel like it lets our family and freinds onto our small
vessel for this large journey.
Best wishes to John Wauters for his Birthday
tomorrow from all aboard Mojo 2.
Andrew Partington.
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