Well, after our last blog entry yesterday we continued having the engine on to keep us going in the right direction as the winds were quite low. The one plus is that without heeling much we were able to fix a nice "sit down" meal again. We are taking advantage of doing that while we can. We have gotten into a pretty good routine that works for us. In the evenings we take 4 hour watches, Bob from 8PM to midnight, Janice from midnight to 4AM with a return to Bob on watch while Janice gets 2 hours of sleep before starting communication duties of downloading weather files of talking to our friends, Saralane as well as the other boat out here crossing with us, SV Drum. During the day our duty schedule is not as fixed, but we each get naps during the morning & afternoon so we have enough rest for the night time. We have even noticed that our bodies have been getting used to it as many times we wake just before the alarm goes off.
Last night when Janice came on duty the wind picked up enough to turn off the engine finally! We got up to 16 knots of wind but it averages between 13-14, therefore our hull speed got up to 7 knots during this time which helped make up for earlier in the day. When Bob came back on duty in the AM the wind started to die again. Bob's suggestion of course was that I need to stay on duty longer in order to keep the wind. Luckily I know he is kidding!
Today has been slow again with a combination of having the engine on and off to keep to a minimum of 4-5 knots of hull speed. This afternoon we could see quite a large squall just north of us but it was moving southeast and it wound up going in front of us so we missed it. In a way we were looking forward to a fresh water rinse of the boat and some wind, but it didn't happen.
About 3PM this afternoon we had to tack for the first time since we had changed to an eastern direction on day 2. The wind changed from southwest to northwest, picked up for a short time and then has quieted down again leaving us to put the motor back on.
The total miles for day 4 was 125 miles which wasn't bad, will be interesting to see how we end up as a total for day 5 at 6:30AM tomorrow. Our total distance since leaving St. Martin is 574 miles. We are still heading northeast and will continue to keep you updated through this blog.
Just a note for those that are following along - you are welcome to send us comments, but please note that we will not be able to see any of them until we reach the Azores so don't be surprised if you don't get a response.
The only wildlife we have seen today are the terns that seem to keep circling the boat quite often. Always nice to see them flying around.
Best wishes to you all - by the way the nights are cooling down - we will need to change into long pants & long sleeves again for the night watches, but fortunately the days still are warm. Will "talk" to you tomorrow!
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At 5/29/2012 1:08 AM (utc) our position was 17°53.78'N 062°50.97'W
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