14:28.6N 53:12.3W

Saturday 1^st and Sunday 2^nd Jan 2011

New Year’s Day dawned bright and sunny but there was a distinct lack of wind which did at least have the benefit of allowing the seas to settle down a bit.

What we were left with was just the long Atlantic swell which we are pretty sure is now higher (and deeper) than at any previous point in this trip. The long deep troughs leave you gazing up at these walls of water and then as you crest the top of the next water hill (Chris on S-F coined this term during the day) the view across the ocean seems to go for ever and leaves you quite literally as the highest point for hundreds of thousands of square miles. S-F had a big cargo ship pass them heading in the opposite direction and they were enthralled how this huge ship could disappear one minute and then loom over them the next.

The sailing was very dull though and pretty frustrating as although we could still make 4 to 5 knots, this was accompanied by the sails slapping and folding and refilling as we rolled gently in the waves. It seems that the promised trade winds that are usually blowing nicely at this time of year have simply failed to materialise yet ( at least six weeks late), although we have heard that things might be a bit better further ahead of us, so fingers crossed for the final few days.

We have seen no dolphins since 200 miles out (ie 1500 miles ago!) and the only wild life remains the little black birds that keep showing up and the endless flashing flying fish who continue to delight us with their long almost graceful glides and crash landings, with some still ending up on our decks. (Sarah did read today that a speciality of Barbados is deep fried flying fish.) The little birds have visited us every day and we are not actually too sure what they are. However on Saturday we were joined for a hour by a much larger sea bird that looked a lot like a gannet. It was very acrobatic and would interrupt its soaring sweeps across the sky to dive, near vertically into the sea to make a catch.

Still the days and nights are punctuated by the odd large dark clouds, which creep up and deposit torrential rain and frequently strong gusts of wind. Inexplicably this only seems to occur when I am on watch... or it becomes my turn to be on deck.

Along with S-F we have been trying to arrange for a mooring for a few days on our arrival in Barbados, but this has so far not been possible. There are few visitor moorings in Port St Charles and these are kept usually for the lucrative visits of superyachts and small yachts such as us are of little interest. We may end up checking into the country and then heading to the anchorage in Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown.

At dusk on Saturday, we chatted on the VHF with S-F and debated the merits and otherwise of perhaps motoring for a while as the wind had dropped to barely 8 knots, but as we spoke, it improved a bit and we decided that 12 knots was quite enough for sailing and so we continued into the night under sail. However around 3.00am on Sunday morning, the wind had dropped to just 3 knots and our speed was a miserable 0.1 knots! 20 miles to the south of us we picked up the AIS signal of a tall ship (200ft sailing vessel), the Alexander V Humbolt which was managing just 2.5 knots but in pretty much any direction. Reluctantly we rolled away the sails and for the next few hours we made our way under engine. This did at least have the merit of helping us charge our batteries which remain quite low and in need of a bit of a boost.

Sunday was a long dull old day as the wind never filled in and we were left sailing and occasionally motor-sailing all day long. The wind would edge up to 10 knots and we would unfurl the downwind sails and set everything up and after a short while it would drop back down to 6 knots leaving us pretty much wallowing along at 3. 5 knots. S-F were not able to hold a course along the rumb line with one pole now broken, so they kept as good a heading as they could manage and continued to sail and motor sail as well.   

By the evening we had covered only 112 miles which was our worst days run yet and the prospect is for not much more wind anytime soon! We managed however to sail through the night OK averaging a slightly better than 4 knots and with the calmer seas we both had reasonable sleeps when off watch.

On Monday morning we briefly caught sight of the masts and yardarms of the tall ship sailing parallel to us. They appeared to have turned off their AIS 24 hours ago and so we had no idea where they were until their mastheads poked above the horizon. Could  be a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean or Master and Commander!