On a blistering spinnaker reach
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Fri 29 Jul 2011 15:55
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39:15.05N
035:04.72W
Summer Song continues to plough a serene and lonely
furrow towards Flores. As I type, we've just ticked under the 180 mile mark. A
largely windless night under power has given way to a gentle summer breeze which
has enabled us to sail once again. We're on a fine spinnaker reach, doing four
and half knots in only seven and a half knots of wind. The spinnaker is sheeted
in tight like a gigantic variegated genoa to allow us to sail slightly to
windward.
Meanwhile the seas have fallen away to the
slightest of swells, and the going is unbelievably peaceful. I could carry on
like this indefinitely: the sleeping is good, the sailing glorious, the sea a
deep cerulean blue and the supplies of tinned veg in the bilges apparently
bottomless. What possible reason could we really have for wanting to go ashore?!
Just the fact that Elise is hoping to go surfing for her birthday on
Wednesday...
Halfway through yesterday, we got fed up of
motoring and stopped for another swim, then tried getting the spinnaker up, just
in case it would fly. I had forgotten just how well the boat sails with the
chute in very little wind - the key is a calm sea - and we forged ahead. The
beast flew well into the night, until the wind died to nothing on Chris' watch
in the early hours. We donked up again, first having helped Elise move from her
berth over the engine to the vacant starboard-side saloon berth, where sleep is
more feasible.
It became apparent that we'd arrived in the centre
of the Azores high, as the air weighed heavy and listless. The sea flattened out
into an oily calm and the boat seemed to dance sideways in the current,
unnerving Alex on watch. She came within an ace of waking me at 2am, concerned
about a huge ship with blazing navigation lights dead ahead. Happily, a few
minutes of hesitation separated the lights into a bright star on the horizon,
and a reflection of our own bowlights. Just as
well...
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