Day 5 – Saturday November 8th
Overnight Friday the winds died off and we motor-sailed until about 10AM. As mentioned before, our push was to get south. Normally when sailing from Hampton to Antigua you sail east southeast until you get to around 62 degrees west longtitude (east of Bermuda) and then turn south. The reason you do this is because there are normally very consistent winds south of Bermuda that come from the east, so this minimizes the amount of time you need to beat into the wind. Due to the light wind forecast we need to stop our “easting” and get south.
The winds today allowed us to sail southeast, but not very fast. The conditions improved through the day.
Day 6 – Sunday November 9th
The sun exists! – We haven’t seen the sun in three days but its out today! Today was a pleasant day, moderate winds and seas. Jenna finally got the bacon she has been asking for the last two days. Reinhart tried fishing today – nothing but sargassum weed! The picture at the top of the post is tonights sunset.
Day 7 – Monday November 10th
Today was not fun! We are sailing as close to the wind as possible and it’s bumpy and not comfortable. We are sailing southwest which has the south we need but were loosing our east position that we had been fighting for the previous day.
As the day wore on, we are losing ground on our need to get south to chase the wind. By late in the day I was giving us a 50/50 chance to reach the wind but at least we were sailing and not motoring! If we don’t catch the pocket of wind tomorrow, it could be almost a week before the wind fills back in.
Day 8 – Tuesday November 11th
Reinhart has success and catches our first fish of the trip – a very nice Mahi Mahi. We have half for dinner tonight, some as ceviche, some as fish tacos, and freeze the other half.
Winds started dying around noon so it’s more comfortable. We started motor sailing around 7:30 AM to try pointing higher towards our destination. We lost all winds late afternoon and won’t see them again until sometime tomorrow – “when” is a big question as I am not sure we are far enough south but time will tell.
The only good part about it calming down and having the engine running is we have hot water and can make water so it’s shower time after a couple of days of not being able to take one!
Our plan is to motor until we find wind or until early afternoon Wednesday if no chance of catching it. If not we will decide our best option to get to Antigua, too many variables in the next 18 hours to make plans yet. One possibility is motoring to St Martin and re-fueling.
Day 8 – Wednesday November 12th
Today had two highlights – first (and best) was we got a visit from a pod of dolphins this morning. They stayed with us for several minutes, and were all around us. Its always fun to get a visit from them, but today was especially rewarding after a long first week out.
The second highlight is, by 10AM we had a little bit of wind and are motor-sailing at over 6 knots – which is a knot faster than I planned. This means we have a real chance of keeping some wind all the way to Antigua or to St Martin even if we need to motor-sail all the way. Based on my calculations in the morning we could reach St Martin on fumes, but this extra speed is definitely helping.
By 2:30AM we had enough wind to sail, now we know we can at least make St Martin on fuel, and putting Antigua as a strong possibility. We’re still heading more towards St Martin just to be sure.
I will cover the end of the trip in part three.