Cloudy but fast

31st July 2010.
08.00 Flying along. Wind about 16kt from just west of south, boat speed mid 5´s or 6kts, 7 in the gusts. Seas up a little but not bad really, regular. The old boat does like a little breeze and an empty ocean. Don´t we all.
12.00 49deg14N 15deg 41W Pressure 1021mb.
Days run 121Nm. Should be better today, 419 miles to go. Soon we´ll be back over the continental shelf so on the lookout again for more traffic and fishing boats. Another cold front going through tonight. Fast sailing if a little bumpy. Right now a little light jazz from Aaron Neville calms the waves, lets see, tuna for lunch I think.
If anyone does read this it may not get updated til landfall, the satphone email account is just about to expire, so if it all goes quiet it doesn´t mean I´ve fallen off the edge of the world. Or possibly......

Eating well

16.00 After much untangling and fiddling Mr Spinnaker is flying again, hopefully chafe free this time. Goosewinged with main out to starboard. Not much wind, heading NW at just over 4Kt. Was 2kt before with foresail. NW, now that´s towards Galway... hmmm, tempting... no, better not. Somehow the aries windvane steers the boat dead downwind even though there is barely a breath of apparent wind. Amazing piece of kit.

29th July 2010. Day 9
10.30 Last night about midnight wind got up a bit so I chickened out and dropped the spinnaker. Up it went again about 7ish this morning then down again just now. Up, down, make yer mind up! But keeping the boat speed up and i´m having a good time so no complaints at all, this is a great passage so far, even with a slow start. Just noticed I was halfway through making a cup of coffee when the spinnaker demanded some attention. That Mr. Spinnaker is sooo needy! A squeak of a block, little flap of a sail , the boat heels over a touch and you know the wind speed is up. OK, Mr. Spinnaker. I´m coming now!! For goodness sake, it´s all me me me with that sail.
Beautiful conditions recent few days, flat seas, some wind in generally the right direction, Catching lots fish.... One of those statements is false, can you guess which one??
Forecast looks good for near future as well if i can just keep above this high pressure. And if it stays where it is, which it might. I´m due a bit of luck after the windless first 2 weeks of Antgua/Azores.
Ship passed this morning about 4 miles astern. Beep beep went the AIS alarm before the ship even appeared on the horizon, another great bit of kit.

12.00 47deg44N 20deg46W.
Days run 112Nm. Pressure 1240mb. Getting chilly, 20degC outside! Snowballs soon.
19.30. Rolly polly. Dead downwind with swell on port quarter a bit so rolling like a rolly thing. Just put 1st reef in the main. Weak warm front went through this afternoon and cold front going over now. Light rain. 600Nm to go.

30th July 2010. Day 10
10.30. FISHEY!!!!!! Biggun. Whizz went the reel at last after dragging some poor lures a few thousand miles. Big tuna, 2´4" or 70cm long. Yummy, just had second breakfast of lightly grilled 15 minutes from the sea tuna with some olive oil, black pepper and wasabi. Enough left for days. Wonder if you can salt tuna?
Cold front went over during the night, sunny again with winds veered more to the west, jib gybed to starboard, sailing nicely along in a nice F3 breeze. Chilly though. 18degC outside. Brr. Beginning the think that long trousers may be less a symbol of defeat and more a symbol of a blimmin good idea.
More tuna anyone?

12.00 48deg 27N, 18deg29W. 893 miles so far,537 miles to go
Days run 103Nm. Just above 100 so enough.

ALmost half way.

27th July 2010. 45deg 53n, 25deg 21w.
Nothing much happening. Just lovely downwind sailing. Days run 120Nm. Fine by me. Front dissapated before reaching here, currently still sailing up the west side of a high pressure. And very nice it is too!

28th July 2010 46deg 43n, 22deg 55w.
Days run 116Nm. More of the same. Pressure up to 1026 now and wind easing, speed down to 4kt, but still moving in the right direction. Just went up the mast to run in a new spinnaker halyard, bit wobbly up there but nice view. In 2 minds about hoisting the spinnaker again, might not gain much but might give it a go after lunch. 675Nm so far with 725 to go. Almost half way there.

Less than a thousand to go...

25th July 2010.
08.30. Turned right. A bit. Now pointing towards Lands End. Hurrah. Wind got up during the night, about 20Kts true now from the south. Just got rid of the pole and sailing starboard tack at about 6kts. Little choppy but not rolling as much as overnight, which was a rolly thing indeed! Spinnaker down. A little quicker than was planned. Wind rose a tiny bit before sunset last night, I was down below and BANG!!!! Boat goes shudder. Ooops. Spinnaker down. Spinnaker now trailing along the side of the boat in the water. Halyard parted at the masthead where there was some chafe, should have spotted that. So getting a spinnaker back onboard when the sock has turned into a giant balloon with about 150 litres of seawater is a very good aerobic workout, spare main halyard on a winch was the only way. So Mr Spinnaker is now back in his bag and having a little lie down in the forepeak. Don´t think he´ll come out to play again for a while.
12.00 43deg 51N 30deg 15W.
Wind about 20Kt from south. Bit choppy. Days run 113Nm.

26th July 2010. 12.00 44deg 47N 27deg 49W.
Days run 124Nm. Nice sailing today, wind down to about 10Kt true from just west of south. Seas down, nice again. Broke the thousand mile barrier, about 960 to go, just over a week at this speed. Quite looking forward to seeing land. The rolling fields and hills of England's green and pleasant land once more. Hope it´s sunny. Wefax shows a cold front coming through tomorrow, some swell from south west already so tomorrow it might even rain! Imagine! And a bit more wind but hopefully will pass through quick.

Off again

21st July 2010 20.50. 39deg 45N, 30deg 32W.
Off to a nice start, picked up northerly breeze after less than an hour motoring out of the lee of Flores. Lovely coastline, mountains and valleys with waterfalls pouring off the sides of cliffs into the sea. And green, green with stripes of pale blue hydrangea growing wild far up in the hills in the little patchwork fields. A beautiful place indeed. But now hidden astern with it´s sister island, Corvo just a smudge on the horizon silhouetted by clouds bright with the low sun. Wind northerly, about 14kns. Got up to near 20kns as it was funneled past the island but getting lighter now. Due to die overnight according to the forecast then hopefully start picking up light southerlies from the high pressure further east. What would be nice would be to have them for a few days to get north a fair way then turn right towards UK as the westerly's start to do their thing, keeping well clear of biscay. But the weather does what it wants so who can tell. 40 miles down, about 1300 to go. Always seems a long way at the start. Possibly because it is.

22nd Day 2, ghostly dolphins

22nd July 2010 03.30.
Wind died quickly about 10pm. Now ghosting along at just over 1kn. Even at these low speeds fairy dust phosphorescence streaming out behind the rudder. Quiet up on deck but every slat of the sails gets amplified below into a nerve wrenching bang and clatter. Sea strangely noisy too although very calm, almost sounds like a river. But we´re pointing roughly right, about 345deg, towards Greenland, good enough for now.

05.00  Black night outside, there is a bit of moon somewhere but hidden behind the clouds. I just went for a look outside and there was the familiar sharp gasp of dolphins surfacing. Dolphins in phosphorescence, what a sight! Each one a cloak of sparkling points of light leaving a fading pale tunnel in the water behind them as they pass under the boat. You can´t see the dolphins, too dark, just this glistening dolphin shaped moving piece of light. Incredible. Some glittering friends on a dark lonely night far out at sea.

13.00  Running goosewinged now. Due north at about 4kn. Days run 62Nm, not great but speed right down to a crawl overnight. Nice light breeze from south now, very little rolling. Pointing towards Iceland. Which is just about right for now, wind might veer round to SW overnight and strengthen a little, taking us a bit more to the east. All good. Shoal of little fish round the boat. Wonder if that´s what the dolphins were after.
Must be time for a siesta by now.

22.25. Back into the routine of weatherfaxes. Already the gribs downloaded in Flores are wrong. High building east of me, but still some wind. Heading northish at the moment, with a little good fortune I´ll get far enough north of the high to keep these light winds. Only doing about 3kn so no records will be broken just yet but at least the boats moving in pretty much the right direction.

23rd July. 10.00 41deg14N 30deg 30 W Day 3. 137 Nm so far. Lots to go.
Wind died about 05.30, that bang bang boat shaking nerve wracking sail slatting horribleness was too much so 3 reefs in the main again and everything pulled in tight. But now.... for the first time the spinikker is up! And pulling. We may be pointing towards Greenland again but at 4Kn!! In only about 5kn of apparent wind. Whoopydoo! Not too bad to put up, hope down is as easy.
12.00 Days run 84Nm. Not great but fine. Sailing due north now in light wind with spinikker up, lookin good! High pressure chasing us but might just keep out of it´s clutches. With a little luck from the gods of wind.

It´s time.

Nice little breeze. Lets go shall we.

Almost ready for another go

Nearly ready to head off to points further north than have been seen onboard for many a year.

Rig checked, up the mast, all split pins safely present and correct.

Checked reef in staysail, never used it yet but it´s there and it works.

Rigged storm trysail, ready to deploy on its own track in a bag tied off to the mast. Very doubtful if that will get used but nice to know it´s there ready. Webbing jackstays rigged down each side of the deck to clip the harness onto if it gets a bit feisty and I need to go forward.

Loads food onboard, last spud run in the morning.

Big pot of stew bubbling in pressure cooker for first couple of days.

Plenty water and diesel. Looks like a calm couple of days at the start then into the westerly's again.  Will head north for a good few days first, well clear of Biscay if any big low comes across, then turn right a bit towards the channel. That's the idea anyway.

And downloaded super mario  game for laptop  

Bring it on!!

A short walk in the country

What a beautiful island.

The neighbors

Anchored next door. 84 days from Ascention to Flores. Thats a while.
http://www.phoenicia.org.uk/index.htm

Corys Shearwaters.

 Not quite as noisy as this clip but as the boat is anchored near cliffs, this is not far off how it sounds around here. Like having kazoos on helium flying round the boat.

http://selvagens.seawatching.net/calls/Cal_dio_bor1_NH.mp3

Flores.

Look, you can post pics here as well! There´s something photogenic about goats, dodn´t you think? Flores lovely, bit damp at the mo but that´s ok.

Here´s the anchorage. Boats from all over here, a few I recognize. Shall be here for a few days more, stocking up more food. Great spuds here. And trying to cross out more items each day from the to do list than get added.

At last.

8th July 2010. 02.00.
Flores 20 miles ahead with glittering orange patches in the dark. Getting more well defined as we get closer. I saw it not long before sunset, looked up and there it was, with the smaller island of Corvo to the north of it. Wow! Sailing nice through the dark with occasional dolphin squeak through the hull. Been pacing the decks all day excited, finally landfall. Should get in not long after dawn. Radar alarm set to 12 miles in case sleep takes over from excitement.

10.30. Anchored! Quite a few boats here.
16.30. No idea what time zone this is but those prawns were GREAT. As was the wine. Easy check in, no need to check out, just leave whenever you want to. Well stocked supermarket. Everything a boy could want. Poor ole boat is looking like a rusty sad thing. Easy to see which tack I was on the whole way. The rusty one. Don´t worry love, paint and tender loving care is coming your way. In another thousand and a half miles or so. Not far now..... 

Are we there yet?

7th July 2010. 40deg 14N 32deg 48W. Pressure 1028mb. 93 miles to go. Day 31.

Well what a welcome luxury to get up to. Little breeze from the south and a bit of unreefing sees the boat not only sailing slowly but roughly in the right direction! With less than 100 miles to go. At this speed will get in to Flores tomorrow. Grib and weatherfax show the wind holding so this could be it. Part of me wants to drop the sails and stay out here, it´s ever so peaceful and a perfect place to practice guitar. But all things change, ice cream and cold beer here we come! Can´t let the guard down just yet, it always seems to be the first or last few miles that will bite you on the bum. Might hove to before getting too close to get some sleep overnight, we´ll see. Woke this morning to the sound of dolphins passing a hundred yards or so astern, quiet splash and gasp as they surface. Often seen them but can´t remember ever hearing them like that before. Though you can just hear a very high pitched squeak down below sometimes when they are around. The shoal of little fish which have been enjoying the shadow of the boat for the past few days are now swimming flat out to keep up, wonder how long before they give up. Clear blue sky again. Even if these past few days have been slower than slow I shall have fond memories of the serenity out here, I think only here and way up in the mountains can you experience this. Here may take longer here but it´s not as hard on the legs and there´s less to carry     

Groundhog day again.

4th July 19.00
Wind still light but gone ever so slightly more south, now we´re point towards north of Spain. 120 miles to Flores but now 40 miles to far north, wind needs to keep veering and maybe in couple of days the anchor will dig in to European seafloor again. And ice cold beer will be drunk. Into week 5 today, seems like only, well, about a month ago the anchor was pulling out of the Caribbean seafloor. How time flies. But beautiful sailing these past couple of days. Perfect, apart from the small matter of pointing in slightly the wrong direction. Wonder if there´s decent wifi in Flores, could do with some new computer games, solitaire is getting really boring now. And you can´t cheat.
22.00.
This is just like being at home. Wind dies after dusk so work done for the day, reef in the sails to stop them slatting, have something to eat & wash the dishes, read a book for a while, play guitar for a while and forget where I am, pop outside and wow! i´m drifting around in the middle of the Atlantic ocean with a billion stars overhead. Sometimes, for a second, it´s all so perfect you just have to smile.

5th July 2010. 10.43. 40deg 18n 33deg 07w. 108 miles to go. Day 30.
No landfall today. No wind either. Drifting in minute breeze 060deg at 1kt. Still pointing at north of Spain. Grib shows little westerly tomorrow so might get there then. Nice day though. One onion left, powdered milk all gone, noodles or rice, tinned tuna and black coffee these days. Some fish following the boat but not interested in the little bit of cheese I kept for bait. They look at it but turn away, obviously not cheese eating fish. Flat calm, hardly any swell. Just blue sea and blue sky, couple little clouds. 22deg outside, almost chilly. Completely silent except for a creak now and then from the boat. Even the fridge sounds loud.

Slightly the right direction

4th July 2010 Noon. 38deg 54N 34deg 57W.
178 miles to go and heading due north at 1.4kts. But, caught a little squid for lunch so all is not so bad. Made 34 miles towards Flores in last 24 hours, at least not backwards. Warmer today, pressure way up at 1030mb.
13.30 Little breeze from sse, now doing 3.5kts NE. Seems to be the way, little breeze for a while, unreef everything, breeze drops and get fed up with the sails slatting so reef everything. But nice to be moving even if only slowly. Sort of in the right direction as well.

5th July 2010. 04.45. 39deg 34n 34deg 29w. Pressure 1030.5mb. 155 miles to go.
All sail up again after reefing in at 2am when the banging got too much. Lovely little breeze this morning. Shame we´re pointing towards Shetland. If there was plenty food onboard I´d keep going but fresh food wins hands downWatre must be getting a bit low as well, though there´s 40 litres still left in plastic containers. Beautiful morning, clear and sunny and cool. Heading 040deg close hauled, Flores is 090deg. But better to be moving. Great sailing yesterday afternoon, easy motion, quiet, with a little breeze gently pushing the boat along. Not the exactly correct direction of along but does it matter that much, it wasn´t eaxactly the wrong along either. Plane flew over in the afternoon, first I´ve seen in nearly a month at sea, watched the con trail for about 15 minutes, a perfectly straight pure white line across the sky. Flores edging closer, 155 miles now so if the wind would only veer a bit more to the south my dreams of fresh fruit and icecream may come true yet....

Another slow day...

4thJuly 2010 07.00. 38deg 48N 34deg 59w. Pressure 1029.5mb.
Did total of 5 miles since 5pm yesterday. Towards Iceland. Not quite the world beating daily runs of late but never mind. Could be going backwards. Tempted to motor but better not, nearly out of diesel and who knows what muck there is at the bottom of the tank waiting to find a new home in the engines´ fuel system. So drifting is today's plan. Heading 015 deg at 0.5kt. Azores high looks set for a day or so anyway, better make myself at home. Chckpeas soaking for another monster curry, ain´t gonna starve but ain´t gonna suffer from sensory overload from fresh food either. Could possibly torture small puppies in exchange for an icecream right now. But it´s a lovely sunny morning. There are some dolpins leaping couple of hundred yards away, the boat isn´t moving so doesn´t look like they want to come and play today. What to do today.

Satin sea.

2nd July 16.10. Tiny little northerly breeze crept up this morning and drizzle stopped. Now edging east at 2.5kt. Will get there yet, but may take a few more days. Seawater bucket shower in cockpit, brr, not tropical warm water anymore. 4 onions left, plenty tinned tuna and tomatoes though. Been looking through recipe books..... at the salads! Saw a gannet this morning, so land can´t be too far away. Soon!!!

23.00. Wind down to about 2kt from NE. Tried tacking but tacking agle was 220 deg! Now hove to in the tiny breeze heading about 0.5kt almost exactly away from Flores. Back to bed to dream of salads and icecream :(

3rd July 2010. 17.30 28deg 32.5n 35deg 08.8W Pressure 1028mb.
Motored all day, 43 miles closer in flat calm. Lot of dolphins. Must be bang in the centre of high now, not much diesel left so drifting now. 192 miles to go. Oh so close oh so far. Only fresh food left is 3 onions, last butternut squash went in soup for lunch. . And very nice it was to. Tins and rice all the way now though.  But with Bob Marley drifting across the empty flat satin sea not much matters.

Don worry, bout a thing,

Cos every little thing, gonna be alright!!!!!!

Rain.

1st July 2010. 09.00 38deg 21N 38deg 08W Pressure 1025mb.
Drizzle outside. Grib shows Azores high moving north a little and the wind dissappearing with it. So it goes. Sailing OK right now though, through the grey north Atlantic drizzle. 332 miles to go, could be slow, the wind might hold. Who can tell? Not me.

12.00. Rain stopped. Wind a bit more north so gybed jib round, on port tack now. Days run 131Nm. 316 miles to go, keep going, girl, almost there! Fresh tomatoes! Chilled Portuguese white wine!!  

2nd July 2010. 07.00 38deg 29N 36deg 47W. Pressure 1025mb
No wine then. Flat calm and drizzle. Not enough diesel to motor 300 miles. Might have a day off here then. Stay in and read a book. That would make a change.  Seem to be in a satellite dead zone as well so might be stuck here for ever and never get to send this.