Wilmington to Bermuda Day 2

32:52.70N 73:55.6W

2^nd June 2015

260 Miles from Wilmington 

8643 Miles from Ramsgate by log.

            The bridge opened spot on time and so at 10am on the 31^st of May we departed Wilmington heading south towards the Cape Fear inlet. Three hours of steady motoring with the outgoing tide brought us into Southport marina our last stop over in America. The stopover lasted almost exactly 45 minutes as we topped our fuel tanks up, squeezing in every last litre of diesel that we could manage and then filled the water tanks. The weather report shows a low pressure system developing down south that will be on us up here by Thursday and so we plan to get out ahead of that and be across the Gulf stream before it hits. Unfortunately that will leave us with light East to South East winds for nearly the entire trip over to Bermuda, hence the need for every drop of fuel.

Jen and Adamant have settled in well and Steve is like part of the furniture around here anyway so he slotted in straight away. Jen was on mother watch for 24 hours starting from 1400 on the first day and so the first meal at sea was down to her. A full Sunday roast was duly cooked so she is definitely a keeper. As Jen was on Mother watch she got to sleep through the first night and Adamant went straight into the watch system. For his first night Steve and myself did an extra hour each so that he had company for his first shift cycle. Tomorrow Adamant will go onto Mother watch and so Steve and myself can shadow Jen on her first shift cycle. Third night out I will be mother and so I will sleep in the cockpit and be available if they need me and Steve will fall back into the normal 2 on 6 off routine that we run at sea. Norma while all of this has been going on has been shadowing both Jen and Adamant in the galley to get them used to the intricacies of out domestic life and to show them all of the little pokey holes that we have used to squirrel away our mountain of supplies. So all is well so far apart from a total lack of wind. Looking through the log Force 2 has been the strongest and that was smack on the nose so it has been a non stop motor sail so far.

This morning we had a big take on out fishing gear. The line screamed out and it must have been a big one because the blighter pulled the hook straight and got away. We have seen three dolphins, none of which came to play unfortunately. We also sighted the fin of a really large shark swimming by and have sighted several Portuguese Man-o-Wars. Perhaps the strangest sighting was a dogs bowl floating on a block of polystyrene, no sign of any dog fish though (get it Dog Fish! Honestly this stuff is priceless).

Night two went peacefully with Adamant creating a very nice curry in the galley and Jen completing her first night watch monitored me for the first hour and then Steve for the second. The winds remained stubbornly light throughout the night until we got a mini break at 0400. The wind climbed to the dizzying heights of 9 knots and we actually managed to switch the engine off for two whole hours before the wind went light again. This morning we have played with the cruising chute which again pulled us along for 30 minutes before the wind died so it is back under engine again.

That’s it for now motoring, motoring, and more motoring but all in the right direction so it would be churlish to complain too loudly. The fishing gear has been deployed and I for one can’t think of a single reason why we wont be eating Dorado for dinner tonight.

The next blog will be on Thursday by which time we should be very close to Bermuda.