Update from the Sailors - Better News!

We are just about halfway from New York to Horta. We can't wait to get there. Boy… the weather really rules our lives out here. If it is bad, we suffer. If it is good, we are happy. The last couple days have been good. You can see our progress on the SPOT GPS page (link above) - we are making between 100 and 140 miles per day. We can make progress in all but the worst extremes - no wind, or wind so high we heave-to. Our weather routers, Rob and Radio Herb, will sometimes direct us slightly out of our way to avoid areas of very high wind or no wind. So, far, it's working. Winds today are 15 to 18 knots out of the SE so we can head due east on a broad reach - the best and easiest course to sail. If the wind drops Pat says we can break out the spinnaker and see how much faster we can go.


It is not quite as hot as it has been, so we have been cooking a hot lunch and having that in the cockpit around 1 p.m.. We have been plowing through books when not doing boat chores and of course we have our evening group talks when we review the day and preview the next. So life on board in good weather is good. We have to get better at improving our life in bad weather because we know it won't be mostly sunny, 80 degrees, and 15 knot winds forever.

Last night during Rob's watch, from 3 a.m.to 6 a.m., we had a good, long rain which rinsed all the salt off the boat. We have (had) salt everywhere. It coats the boat, the hardware, the cockpit, the dodger, the bimini, the windows, the hatches - it is everywhere. Saltwater splashes up on the boat, then dries, then repeats. Sometimes we can see sparkles from the salt crystals. One bad thing about salt is that it attracts moisture. If you get a good saltwater splashing, you have to change clothes at some point and rinse the old ones out or you will constantly feel sticky and wet and will, eventually, get a rash. Rob says it feels like sugar water. None of us will ever salt our food again.

Yesterday we did a pretty big boat chore. In an effort to improve our long-distance SSB radio performance, we pulled up all the floorboards and ran some wires to better ground the radio to the bronze plates on the bottom of the boat. Pat figured out a way to wire four different grounds together. That involved wiring, soldering, electric drills, our complete tool kit, and lots of sweating. The project went well and there was little to no cursing involved. Rob rewarded us with a delicious hot lunch when we were done.

Today is mostly devoted to route planning and getting updated weather faxes.

Hope all is well in the rest of the world!
 
Posted by Peggy on behalf of Pat, Rob and Tom, aboard Remedios, Atlantic Ocean