Cowabunga! Surf’s up and we’re moving along nicely. The northwest swell we were climbing over has slowly clocked around to the north-northeast and we’re starting to get some nice surfs when the winds freshen up. With winds in the low 20’s this morning we were surfing at 14.5 knots.
Sailing conditions have been a bit lumpy but generally pretty fast since early yesterday morning when we re-set a spinnaker.
We had a delightful happy hour last evening. For sundowners we had a refreshing gin and tonic (with lemon). Charles gave Merima a much deserved break from galley duty last night and cooked up an excellent Indian curry.
It looked to be another uneventful night of sailing until a line of squalls appeared on the radar screen at about 0430 hours this morning. We quickly took the spinnaker off and went down to white sails. The breeze increased to the low to mid 20’s and went forward so we didn’t give up any speed as we powered through the disturbances.
By sunrise the squalls had evaporated and we were able to set the kite again. The wind continued to blow strong and we were getting in plenty of surfs in the 11 to 14 knot range all morning.
We caught a small trevally on the meat hook, but decided to let it go in hopes of getting something a bit larger.
Graham and Kurt continue to entertain us with their sick jokes.
Ship’s clocks were retarded one hour to GMT-3 hours.
Everyone is a bit tired today due to sleep interruption.
Our noon to noon run was the best so far on this passage at 217 nautical miles. Our noon position was 14° 02′ north by 50° 12′ west.
The distance to run to St. Lucia is now less than 600 miles and we anticipate landfall some time on Thursday.
Cheers, George, Merima, Charles, Graham and Kurt