Sunday, December 12, 2010

Really, We're Trying to Get Home!

We are 700 miles away from our arrival in Florida and had been making 120 miles per day. We knew that wouldn't hold for every day, yet we had some hope it could. We have been watching a big storm way to the north and it is getting bigger and starting to move.

The good news is that this gale is centered off North Carolina and moving east and a little north. The bad news, at least for us, is that the storm is so big we are catching the southern edge of it way down here. On the southern edge of a low the winds blow from west to east and that will be exactly on our nose. Bad for progress to Florida. This also won't change - this low pressure system is too big to just dissipate or get pushed aside by another system.

We expect the heaviest winds to hit us Monday and Tuesday and maybe part of Wednesday. We don't know how much progress we can make during these winds. They will only be 20 to 25 knots or so, no more than we have had several times this trip, but they will not be at our rear pushing us along, they will be in our face...

To get ready for weather like this we have moved our storm sails out on to the main deck from their storage locker below. We did a cabin review and made sure that anything that could be flying off a shelf or table has been tied down. I made some fresh bread this morning so we have some easy food in addition to our protein bars. We will put some of our extra diesel fuel that we have in a fuel storage locker into the main tank so if we have to run the engine to maneuver we won't run out in the middle of the night. Other than that it is just the old sailor stuff of "batten down the hatches and hold on!"

One thing to note is that if we were five days ahead of where we are now, we would be closer to the middle of this storm and it would be so bad up there that we would have to go into Freeport in the Bahamas and hole up for four or five days anyway! So, if we had made faster progress we would have been stopped by this storm anyway.

You can all be sure that we are doing our best to safely complete our sailing adventure. This Wednesday is the six month mark of our trip – we left Barker’s Island in Duluth/Superior port on June 15. Seems like a really long time ago. A really special, fun time - even with all the challenges.

For our Minnesota family and friends, we have great empathy for the incredible winter/snow/storm weather you’ve been experiencing. After all, we’ll be back soon to enjoy all of that with you!

Posted by Peggy, on behalf of Tom and Pat, aboard Remedios, Atlantic Ocean

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