Monday 1^st May 2023

The Caribbean Sea  22^o 28.0 N 61^o 49.1 W 

Blog by David  (Time zone: BST -4)

A pinch and a punch!  It's the first of the month  - and no returns!

Progress  & weather update

We are going along nicely in reasonably light winds but nevertheless have made good about 140 miles in the 24 hours to noon today, averaging just less than 6 knots.  Not exacly a express train, but no slouch either!    

The high pressure ‘balloon’ is being squeezed downwards towards the south east and with luck will be squeezed out of our way by the time we get to it. However, the course we need to steer to be sure is quite a broad reach ; in light airs it is difficult to maintain a speed of 6kts on that point of sail. If all goes well we will be able to continue to sail pretty much all the way to the Azores.  If we catch the edge of the balloon (a high pressure zone in which there is pretty much no wind) we will just have to turn the engine on and motor to the north to find the wind again.

By Friday, we expect to be be far enough north to find a settled SW airstream, and wil be able to sail directly to the Azores.  We will also, less happily,  be catching the trailing edges of the cold fronts of depressions as they pass to the north of us.

Life on Board

It’s nice to get back to sea again – and particularly to find a sailing breeze – however light that may be.  The high pressure balloon has dominated the weather over the last week or so -  to the extent that, in BVI, there was pretty much no wind; we had to plan to move between achorages that we could sail between,  however slowly that might be.  For example, here is a  picture of our anchorage at Anegada, a remote, low-lying island renowned for its exposed and windy anchorages:

Our exposed and windy Achorage – off Pomato Point,  Anegada

Where we landed in search of lunch                                                   Towards Pomato Pt (Serendipity is out of sight)

It’s day three and we have largely settled into our watch routine – my turn to cook tonight – I shall prepare my renowned and  delicious “Chicken Experimentale” (i.e. using up tins that have been open for a while) – possibly with an Imodium based desert ………… just in case J.