Halfway across, and whats under the boat!

February 2nd today, and we are almost halfway across the Atlantic. The total distance on the chart plotter is 2207 Nautical Miles, with 1241 NM to go. We are far beyond our range on the engines out here. We have enough fuel on board to travel about 600NM under ideal conditions, so we are totally dependent on the wind. Fortunately there is plenty of that (but not too much). The winds here are so constant and predictable that in days gone by you could count on them enough to have predictable commerce and trade between continents – hence the Trade Winds. The last few days have been very uneventful, which is just how we like it when we are 1000miles from shore. Although we could stand a little more action on the fishing front. We still appear to be incompetent at fishing. I think we must have lucked out with a particularly stupid fish a few days ago when we got that mahi mahi. Nothing since then, unless you count the flying fish that we have to toss overboard every morning. Most mornings we have 5 to 8 flying fish on the trampoline, or on the deck. One even made it into the dinghy. Out here the water is a few miles deep, and our depth gauge cannot reach the bottom, so it just flashes when it cannot get a reading. It is a little disconcerting at 2 in the morning when the depth gauge suddenly gets a reading at 3 meters! What just went under us that was big enough to show up on the depth gauge! I wish we had a camera rigged to take underwater pictures when that happens. Maggie is keeping us all very well fed. Last night was pork chops, roasted potatoes, carrots and a cake for dessert. The night before it was meatloaf, mac and cheese with butternut squash. A few days before that I tried to stump her, she asked what kind of muffins to make, and I said Cranberry Orange (thinking she would have to say sorry, no can do). Half an hour later we had fresh Cranberry Orange muffins! We have been keeping in daily contact with our friends on Wild Thing. They are a day
ahead of us on their way to Barbados, while we are heading to St Lucia. It has been nice having some company out here, even though they are 100 miles away. Besides Wild Thing, we have only seen one sailboat heading towards South Africa 4 days ago – nothing besides that so far. Our current speed is about 6 to 7 knots. With 1241 miles to go, that is about 190 hours, or just under 8 days. So total passage time looks like about 14 or 15 days. So what does our typical day on passage look like? Let me start at 8pm…that is when the first 3-hour night shift begins. There are 4 of us on board so we each take a 3hr shift at night. Scott and I do a bit of switching so my shifts are never between 11pm & 5am. I just can’t sleep during the day, so best to keep my body clock as normal to ensure a good passage for all. I make up for it with extra goodies from the oven. The next shift is from 11-2, 2-5 & 5-8. So what do I do while I’m on watch. We sit at the helm station so we can watch the gauges – wind speed, wind direction, boat speed and if the sails are behaving. Usually at night we have a bit less sail out as we would under the same conditions during the day. That way you don’t have to be taking sail down in the dark by yourself…do-able, but not ideal. So we just watch the gauges and tweak the sails or direction a bit to stay on course. Every hour we fill in a log with our current GPS coordinates, wind speed, wind direction, heading and barometric pressure. This is a safety thing. If all our instruments were to fail, we would still have a written record of our last position and heading. While looking at gauges I often just stare out to sea, imagining what creatures are swimming below us and enjoying the solitude while everyone else is sleeping. Just a good time to reflect and appreciate life. Occasionally I’ll do some reading. At 8:00am usually there are 2-3 of us up.. most of the time the guys sleep a 3-5 hours before & after their shifts. I think it is definitely a guy-thing to be able to fall asleep whenever you want. Breakfast is usually fairly informal, everyone either fixes something for themselves if they are hungry or someone makes a full breakfast for all. Usually by 10am everyone is up. I spend some of the day puttering around in the galley, re-arranging things in the fridge and freezer, figuring out what fresh produce needs to be used before it spoils and deciding what we can have for lunch or dinner. Meals do help make the days more enjoyable. Although a glass of wine would do… unfortunately we are a dry boat on passage. Safety first… can’t wait till we pull into St Lucia and crack a beer! Scott always manages to find some boat job to work on.. or just makes sure all systems are working as they should and we have enough water and power. The guys are into sextants and celestial navigation, so while they are doing that most of the day, I sit at the helm station enjoying the day, watching for whales and dolphins, checking our fishing lines (still only 1 fish caught to date) and reading. Dinner prep starts around 4pm and we eat around 6-7pm.. clean up, watch a movie sometimes, then its off to bed for all but the 8-11 watch person. One of the biggest constraints we face on a sailboat at sea is power use. The onboard batteries provide for all our needs, and keeping them charged is a challenge. On passage, one of the biggest uses of power is the autopilot. It is an electrically driven hydraulic ram that moves the rudders back and forth to keep us on course. After that it is the fridge and freezer, lights, pumps, watermaker, laptop charging, cellphone charging, etc… Ideally we would like the solar panels to keep the batteries charged, but they are too old and small for the task and we end up having to run the generator for 2 to 3 hours every day. So that is our major fuel consumer. So far we have burned only 30 liters of diesel, almost all of it in the generator. With luck we will arrive in St Lucia with full fuel tanks, as we can refill under way from 80 liters in jerry cans.