some more pics

here are some more fun pics from our trip.

swimming in the middle of the atlantic. 13,000 feet deep water. 700 miles from any land.

arrival at the bitter end yacht club in Virgin Gorda BVI

Meal Plan

10 days at sea and you might be curious of our meal plan for our voyage.  Thanks in huge part to Rob's planning, ability to stash food throughout the various compartments inside the boat, his persistence with the fishing, etc. we managed to eat very well.

 Fresh Mahi Mahi from the fishing lines at the back of our boat quickly turned into Sashimi, complete with wasabi and soy sauce for dipping.  Grilled Mahi Mahi, with rice was another choice on the menu.

 

In spite of crashing through the waves while cooking, other meals included Lasagna from the oven, Steaks on the BBQ with a bottle of Red Wine, Thai Curry Mahi Mahi, Grilled Sausages with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes, fresh Mediterranean Salad, eggs and bagels with fresh coffee in the mornings, and we even managed to have fresh fruit for the entire trip.  Needless to say, we ate well on our journey.

Way to go Rob!

Sunrise and spinnaker

another in a series of catchup blog posts. please read below for another.
We will be making several posts tomorrow to catch up.
---------------------------------------------------------------
I'm a little late on this post, we've been having email problems from
the sat phone lately.

after 2.5 days of strong winds, steady 25 to 30 knots with gusts to 40
knots, and 20 foot crashing waves, the cockpit full of water and spray,
(youtube posts to follow when we get home), rain and thunderstorms,
excitement, etc. the winds finally subsided to 10 knots just in time for
sunrise on Wednesday morning, when we decided to launch the chute
(spinnaker). I'm in my glory! Having the spinnaker flying, pulling the
boat forward, the morning sunshine, me at the helm driving the boat
while sipping my morning coffee, does it get any better than this?
(This pic is just after launching the spinnaker at sunrise!)

On Wednesday afternoon the winds dropped completely. we had to motor,
stop for a couple of swims in the ocean, reel in a couple of Mahi Mahi
that Rob caught, which quickly turned into the freshest possible sushi
you could imagine, clean the boat, eat, sleep, swim, etc. its a tough
life out here!

after a day and half of motoring, and another excellent meal of fresh
caught grilled fish, we are now able to set sail again. only 435 miles
to go to the BVI's!

thanx for following everyone!

Paul

swimming and fish

We are stuck in a high pressure area with NO WIND.
I mean nothing at all.
The ocean is like glass most of the time although there is still a huge
gentle ocean swell of about 10 feet.
We are motoring towards wind at 25N 65W.
At least one other boat is running out of fuel.
We have such an easily driven hull that we could motor almost all the
way to the BVI's with our 50 gallons.

We stopped to go swimming yesterday and today.
Feels weird to jump off the boat with no land in sight and in 13000 feet
of water. Rob caught another Mahi Mahi last night and then another this
morning. We'll fry one up this time and have another for sushi.
We put up the canopy over the boom and we're mostly relaxing in the
shade and reading while the autopilot drives under motor power doing
about 5.5 knots.

this boat goes to eleven

Where do I start?
On Sunday I went up the mast and fixed the minor problem.
Then later that same day Rob caught a fish. It was a Mahi Mahi
and we had fresh sushi for dinner.
Then late Sunday night the winds started to build.
We spent from then to Tuesday late night is huge wind and huge seas.
The winds were 20 to 30 knots with gusts of 40.
The seas were 10 to 20 foot rollers. They were just huge mountains of waves.
We again saw 11.0 knots on the boat, this time while on a reach in 40
knot winds and 20 foot waves. Fun and scary.
We had waves crash right over top of the whole boat.
The cockpit was regularly washed and one wave even drenched the inside.
Everything is soaked. All of our clothes etc.
And the marine rated expensive GPS antenna just shorted out because of
the salt spray in the last two days. We have backups.
Our main sat phone is also dead. We have a backup for that too.


Today after a grueling two and a half days we are
sunning in light winds with the spinnaker up and the autopilot on.
This is a well deserved rest.
The weather is 28C and we are all in shorts and t-shirts and we have
reggae on the stereo.
Tonight with the light wind and waves we can finally use the bbq.
Steaks and red wine for dinner!
Will post pictures when we have better connectivity.

up the mast

After a glorious day of sailing yesterday we had variable direction 2-8
knots last night. Most of the fleet motored all night. we motored for 3
hours so we could keep moving or else the gulf stream would carry us
north. As the night fell we started to hear a strange creaking/groaning
sound from the top of the mast where the head sail halyard go in. As the
sun rose the sound was worse. Later today we are expecting 20+ knots.
Fearing that the jib halyard sheave was seizing and we would not be able
to douse the jib, the captain decided that the smallest lightest person
had to go up mast and investigate and oil it. Hmm, the captain (me) also
realized that at 6' tall I am the smallest person on this boat. This is
not a normal cross section of society. So up the mast I went. it wasn't
bad at all. If i wasn't afraid of heights I could enjoy it more. The
view was spectacular. The boat's pitching and rolling was not as bad as
expected. But everytime we hit a wave it felt like the boat stopped
under me and the mast and I were flung forward. creepy.

I hear the mermaids singing

25 hours of sailing done!
We are in the gulf stream now.
The water temperature has risen from 11C to 23C.
8-12 foot swells with 15 knots of wind from the north.
We are 165 miles out from land.

Last night we heard dolphins (mermaids) playing in our bow wave. We
could hear them singing. We had phosphorescent plankton in our wake.
We had tons of shooting stars and just a sliver of the moon just before
sunrise. Most of the night we were well lit by Jupiter which was very
bright.
We also had a passenger. A small bird came to rest on our life ring and
actually took a nap for about half an hour and then flew away.

We can now literally smell the carribean! The ocean smell changed
significantly as we crossed into the gulf stream.