Atlantic crossing Day 6-10
Flapping sails, calm, swimming in the ocean and seaweed instead of fish.
We record our daily impressions of the crossing in a small diary, as well as the distance travelled in the last 24 hours. We measured it every day from 4pm to 4pm. Join us on our adventure!
Day 6
The wind dies a little during the night so that our sails are flapping. This means that as soon as the sun rises, we take in the sails and hoist the oxley! This light wind sail allows us to sail with winds starting around 9 knots. This time Marti & I go to the front to stow the genoa boom and set the Oxley. It worked out great! 🥳
Thierry is also slowly getting better, his fever has gone down and he dares to come out of his cave now and again to soak up the sun 🌞 We have plenty of it at the moment, the weather is wonderful and it's also good for the batteries. Unfortunately, the wind is dying down more and more and we are sailing a bad course, as we have to luff up quite a bit in such light winds to prevent the sail from falling from the sky. But never mind, we have time 😊
For dinner we have nut rice Cabo Verde style with Mahi Mahi and crazy dips from Wulfi. And off to the night shift!
Etmal:135sm
Day 7
We slept wonderfully. It was by far the best night so far! ❤ The shifts have also changed again in the meantime, my watch is currently from 5am to 8am. I think that's cool, I kind of wake up together with the day 😊 This morning I wake up in a different way, because a flying fish flies into my face 😅 not so nice. I threw it back into the water anyway.
Thierry is definitely out of the woods now and feels pretty okay again. He makes us pancakes for breakfast 😍 Then we take a shower again. Thierry finds 4 flying fish in the anchor locker. What idiots 😆 For dinner I cook saffron noodles with our last leftover mahi mahi. Now we're taking a fish break for a few days 😉
Covered distance: 130nm
Tag 8
We have a lot of wind during the night, much more than forecast. That's probably due to the clouds, and it's interesting to see how they bring or swallow the wind. For my taste it is already borderline, we have gusts of up to 22 knots and the Oxley is still up. That means speeds of 7.5 knots at times. Then 5 minutes later 15 knots of wind again. Things calm down in the morning and by the end of my shift the wind dies down so much that even the Oxley falls out of the sky. We start the engine. Fortunately, after only 2 hours there is more wind again and we can set sail again. The day went well and we made surprisingly good progress, even though the forecast was for a calm. The wave is now quite high, but super long and so it just rolls under us. Looks cool though 😉
A white parcel floats past us in the water, hmmmmmmm 😆 In the afternoon we have rain for the first time and also the first rainbow. In the evening we have mushroom risotto and salad, which almost takes on a life of its own due to the nasty wave 🤣 Off into a new night!
Covered distance: 130nm
Day 9
In the middle of the night, I'm woken from my finally deep sleep by unusual noises: what is that? What's going on? It's music! And a captain who might be out of his mind...? 🤣 Confused, half-asleep and yet amused, the crew struggles out of bed, because: it's HALFTIIIIIIIIME!!! 🥳 We're halfway through the journey, so we have to celebrate with a maracuja shot! There's rum for Poseidon and the Cervino. How cool, we're almost there! 😉
In the morning, the shackle of the Oxley sheet suddenly comes loose and it flutters wildly. In the hectic rush, we don't get the recovery tube down and so the sail twists. We then get it all the way down, spread it out and untangle it. Everything worked and it flies again! And before we can take it back in to replace the shackle, it comes loose again. Haha, a bit stupid of us too. This time, however, everything works perfectly and it is recovered in no time at all.
After that, the watermaker is acting up, which scares us a bit, because it wouldn't be so cool if it broke down. We still have about 200 litres from the water tank plus bottled soft drinks and juices, so that would easily be enough. But it wouldn't be cool. After a few attempts, it runs again. The wind meter also suddenly goes haywire, so we restart the entire navigation instruments once. It works again. What a day!
The sailing boat Kaloo, which we have been seeing on the screen since yesterday, has now overtaken us. We radio them, but they don't answer. Boooooooriiiing! An eventful day comes to an end with spaghetti carbonara from Marti. More chilling tomorrow, please!
Covered distance: 130nm
Day 10
During the night we have very little wind and are heading for Florida rather than the Caribbean... 😅 In the early morning it gets a bit better and at least the sails stop flapping. This calm is slowly coming to an end. According to the weather forecast, there should be more wind again from the day after tomorrow, or even a bit too much, but we'll see 😉 I try my luck fishing in the early shift, but unfortunately I don't get anything on board apart from seaweed. ☹
As the log is no longer working and there is no wind, we stop for a swim and turn the log. That feels good! After that, we sail through the afternoon slowly but quite relaxed, Thierry and I make spaetzle and the other two chill out and read. We also use the quiet atmosphere to say goodbye to Fred the Dread, thinking of our good friends Alessandro and Zoe, who actually wanted to accompany us on this trip. We then have vegetable spaetzle for dinner. What a lovely day 😊
Covered distance: 105nm
Hold fast, there's some wind ahead!
Into the last days at sea!