Adventures

599 nm to go.  ETA Tuesday morning, 231114.

This is all we see 360° around, nothing but light blue skies, puffy clouds and the deep blue ocean.  The Atlantic is about 16,500 ft deep here

Looks like we still have about 40 miles of doldrums before we catch the trade winds, that should take us about 6 or 7 hours hopefully. 

Just before my shift started, Eric saw several whales exhaling through their blowholes, I’ll keep a sharp eye out for them this afternoon.

The wind has picked up to about 8 to 10 knots, but it is still on the bow. We need it to fall off another 15 to 20° before we start sailing this brick.

Today we refilled the fuel tank from nine of our jerry cans, and rinsed the deck of the patio and navigation station with a fresh coating of saltwater.

I woke up a little early for my shift and finally caught my first green flash as the sun set below mirror calm seas!  I finally get to check that dream off of my bucket list!

As my shift started, we’re still seeing 3-5kt winds and mirror calm seas, this would be great water skiing weather.

We’re headed due south with about 650 miles to go.  Hopefully we’ll break out of the doldrums and catch the trade winds in another 70-00 miles.

Is currently 22:00 and I’m watching Kool Blizzard, a tanker, cut across our bow, they should pass within 2.5 mi of us out here on the open sea.

23:00 The wind has shifted and strengthened, if I can get another 20° shift will be able to set our sails.

Since we knew there would be a rush for fuel first thing in the morning, we decided to wait until afternoon to top off our tanks! We took on about 110 gallons of diesel at over $8.00/gallon, which should be plenty to get us all the way to Tortola. The good news is that we’ve got some wonderful wind right now, and after going through a short cull, we should be flying through the trade winds and on the port tack all the way to Tortola.

And as if life couldn’t get any better, our night in Bermuda was very pleasant and relatively uneventful, when leaving port we saw not one but two cruise ships approaching, I am so glad that we’re back at sea and not having to deal with the thousands of people from the cruise ships.

823nm later we are in St. George’s, Bermuda! The crew has all showered and we are ready for shore leave!

The plan is to meet up with the boats that we have been communicating with for the last few days over food and beverages at the White Horse.

Tomorrow will knock out a couple of minor repairs, top off the water tank, take care of laundry, souvenirs, and another sit down meal before we refuel and cast off the lines for our next leg of the journey.

We are woken early in the morning to a forecast of a potential storm ahead of us with 60 mph winds. We spent some time prepping the boat and securing everything so we would be ready if the storm formed. We turned the boat around and headed north to give us some breathing room and hopefully let the storm slide by south of us. Luckily it faded away and the forecast looks quite calm now.