Friday, December 20
For us to pick up the mooring they offered by 6am on Monday and get the dinghy launched, make me presentable, and row in by 10am, we’d have to average 4.283333333 knots. This past period we did less than 3.5 and there’s light winds coming tomorrow.
Crap. Well, we’ll see how they take the no-call no-show if I can’t get a whisper of internet signal. I’m thinking about calling them on the VHF if we’re close enough.
Meanwhile…a few hours later and I’ve been taking my own advice from yesterday…focusing on the sailing! I’ll admit that’s a more pleasant prospect when the winds are full but not strong and the waves active but not uncomfortable.
We’re also celebrating a whole set of storm cells that have missed us…maybe a dozen? We got clipped this morning by the edge of one right before change of watch and I did an extra 5 wet minutes in the cockpit monitoring LoveBot.
I just took over for my first long watch. Even though we’ve been doing one hour watches anyway, it’s been dark since 6. I hope that means James will sleep but he’s excited all over again about the big celestial event from last night. We’ll check with other sky spotters and see if there’s an explanation.
It’s as breezy as promised passing west of the gap between Guadalupe and Dominica, but a little less so than last night between Martinique and Dominica. Somewhat nervous because of the broken leg attachment on LoveBot. Currently, it’s held together by a twist of seizing wire so I’d rather not make it work so hard.
Sitting downwind means leaning back more comfortably instead of bracing myself, but I don’t know how long I’ll want this wind in my face! I’ll probably lay down a while but then I have to set an alarm in case I doze off and to remind me to sit up and do a visual check for other boats.
Saturday, December 21
What a night! Storm cells and squall lines, and when they stopped being predictable I threw my hands up and said, “Fine, I’ll get wet. But NO lightning.”
That’s what we got. Rain, some wind, a lot of rain, and then the calm after the storms.
Literally. James spent his 6-9 watch doing a little motoring and a lot of sail work. He shook one reef in the main and that’s still the right amount of sail a couple hours later.
We don’t know what the rest of the day will bring but doing the work in the light of day, no matter how wan, will be a comforting change.
Noon position: N 16° 17.981’ W 062° 49.278’
Distance: 93.1 NM
Average speed: 3.88 kn
Trip distance covered: 169.0 NM
Distance to destination: 168.5 NM
