Leaving ‘home’
23:00 UTC 01/12/07 16’15N 053’11W Wind SE4 It’s been almost three weeks now since we set off from La Gomera, three weeks since I left England. Unlike Dad and Ed, my departure isn’t a short holiday, but a more permanent emigration. I don’t even know when I’ll next visit the UK, and certainly don’t know […]
Hot and humid
22:30UTC 30/11/07 16’00N 050’33W Wind ESE3 It’s been a very lethargic day. The weather started out blazingly hot, which had us all hiding under the shades or below, and the heat has grown a lot of thunderclouds, which have now arrived and are giving us a little gentle rain – they didn’t develop enough for […]
On not wishing the days away
18:30UTC 29/11/07 15’51N 048’01W Wind ESE3/4 I think I wrote in a recent message that ‘we can almost smell the rum’. And indeed, we now can expect to be in Antigua about this time next week. It is interesting to observe the effect that this has on us. After eighteen days at sea, we are […]
Busy day
17:30UTC 28/11/07 16’28N 045’37W Wind ESE4 We’ve spent most of the morning preparing for some forecast lighter weather. That will require the mainsail, and a pulley at the top of the mast has become very stiff, probably with dust from La Gomera, and makes it tough to hoist the sail. So we swapped the halyard […]
One thousand to go
17:00UTC 27/11/07 16’03N 43’18W Wind ENE4 We continue to move westwards, another 140 miles yesterday. It’s odd to think that what we do in 24 hours, an aircraft does in 15 minutes. We’ll grumble about being delayed for a couple of hours at an airport, yet just 50 years ago, crossing this ocean was by […]
The Squall and the Storm Chaser
16:40UTC 26/11/07 16’02N 040’52W Wind ENE4 We met our first Atlantic squall yesterday. This generated a frantic amount of photographic activity from the crew, especially Mr Ian Sheldon, our artist in residence. For those that don’t know, Ian is a very accomplished professional artist and approaching storms are one of his favourite subjects. In fact, […]
A Day in the Life – Part 4
17:30UTC 25/11/07 16’21N 038’29W Wind NE3/4 Well, that’s another 130 miles down and now we are over halfway in terms of miles and, since the first bit was slow, hopefully we’re way more than halfway in terms of time. If we keep 130 a day, we’re there on Dec 4th. Last night the wind shifted […]
A Day in the Life – Part 3
15:30UTC 24/11/07 17’0N 036’08W Wind ENE4/5 We’re moving south to avoid some lighter winds in the north, but that means that we are running directly downwind again and rolling like a bad’un. But 138 miles in the last 24 hours, despite a quiet patch overnight so no problems with progress. Cocktail last night was a […]
A Day in the Life – Part 2
15:00UTC 23/11/07 17’14N 033’43W Wind E4 More good progress, another 148 miles noon to noon. And 103 pages of my book. Some sleep, still fighting with the rolling but improving. We changed our clocks today, back one hour to cope with the changing times of sunset and sunrise. Communications and navigation is still done by […]
A day in the life – Part 1
16:30UTC 22/11/07 17’06N 031’24W Wind NE5/6 Well, yesterday I thought I would jot down what I did in the day. We have fairly relaxed days so I didn’t reckon it would be too long a post, but here I am with many pages of text! So, if you have the stamina, below is ‘A day […]