Pos 18-29N, 56-43W. 362nm to go about 48 hrs!!!
The landfall cocktails are really starting to look good!!
Day 14 was a zombie day as we were both quite shattered after the
squally eventful night before. So we just sat around drifted off to
sleep here and there. Jumped on a few radio nets, and thought about
what would
be the easiest meals to make for lunch and dinner.
It was a beautiful day, trade wind breeze blue sky, bit of the
standard confused swell running but we had a good sail. From the
radio nets we found that most of the other boats around us ( 500nm
range) all had rough nights with endless squalls, wind shifts and
rain. Now a bit of rain is great as it takes off the thick layer of
salt that we had accumulated all over the boat - inside and out.
We didn't even have the energy to fish - probably not mising much!
Outside of this we made good progress of 172nm for the day run.
As night fell upon us everything seemed to settle down, the wind
eased a little down to an even 20, the sea even sorted itself out
into a normal looking swell, best of all the sky looked clear and
crisp. It ws looking like a great night of sailing.
It sure was, smooth motion, no cloud / squalls and the breeze just
stayed there all night long. Ahhh sleep!
Day 15, we both had a good rest and were jazzed up for the day
ahead. Plan was to keep the pace up and catch some fish. We did
both, hooking a Wahoo on the meat line and keeping the boat moving
well for the day. At times the swell really wound up with the wind
up into the 30's, strangely an 1hr later the wind would drop, and
the
waves would ease off a little?
Day 15 night fall came about and we were wondering if it was going
to be
a clear night again, looking behind us we could see that it ws not
going to be. The sky had this misty look - we were in for another
night of fun and games.
We had a few smaller squalls pass us to the south around 7pm and
outside
of this up to about midnight it was awesome sailing, we were
trucking along at 8.5 knots the sea felt like it was smooth like in
a marina.
About 1am Jo was on watch, a quick flick on the radar and -
Bugger!, We had a line of the suckers coming in. One after the other
and these ones were really big suckers, couple of miles wide and 4-5
long.
As we mentioned before, the squalls are not so bad, it's what they
do to the sea and the winds. These buggers were really messing up
the wind. At times we were running almost 90 degrees to our intended
course, Heading almost due north, then down to due south. This
unfortunatly went on until dawn leaving us not much wind at all!
In the morning we were both a little tired but the day looked like
it
was going to be a good one. The squall activity has passed and the
wind is up blowing 25 from the ENE. We've got both head sails up and
we
are smoking!!!, Reverie is sailing along at 9-10 knots hitting a
peak of 13.4 for the day ( through the water). Its a great sensation
as we surf down the big ocean swells. We will keep pushing this rate
until dusk, then shorten the sails down for the night as we feel we
may be in for another patch of squalls.
No fish yet, but we are after trying - must fill the freezer up
before we arrive!.
Boy is it getting warm!, must be in the 30's today, the water temp
is also sitting at 30.2 degrees!!!
Cheers
J&J
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