May 23

Fri May 23 02:34GMT (11:34pm Thu ship time)
32?31.8’N 56?27.1’W
SOG (Speed over Ground): 7.5 knots
Heading: 080
Distance from Bermuda: 418nm
Distance to Horta: 1,403nm

What a great day it was yesterday. My seasickness is practically gone. The sun came out, the seas calmed a bit yet we still flew along. We’re averaging nearly 8 knots ? somewhere in the region of 180nm per day. If we keep this pace we’ll be in the Azores before the end of the month. Consensus was we won’t sustain these speeds and will arrive around June 1st or 2nd. Nevertheless, even considering our one day head start, we are doing well.

I’m now on standby. After two days we’ve rotated the shift. For the first two days it was :

9pm-11pm: Jim (watch), John (standby)
11pm-1am: John (watch), Bob
1am-3am: Bob, Steve
3am-5am: Steve, Jim
5am-7am: Jim, John
7am-9am: John, Bob

(all times ship-time which is 3 hours behind GMT)

Now it’s shifted forward 2 hours so I am now on standby from 11pm to 1am and on watch from 1am to 3am. I’m also standby from 7am to 9am.

Being on watch means sitting up on the bridge deck, keeping and eye on the horizon, the boat and the instruments. Minor sail trim can be performed to adjust for changes in conditions. Being on standby means you’re up and relaxing but ready to support chap on watch. Here I am listening to music and writing my log.

Also since the last log. We put the fishing lines out again but didn’t get a nibble. We changed to a more northerly course to skirt a weather system developing diagonally east of us. This may mean we’ll be going north and the temperatures dropping each day. Each day we’re in tee-shirts we’ll have to count as our last as it could just well be that. We saw a few more sailing jellyfish. Not sure what these are called but on the surface they look like a bubble with a translucent sail on top. We figured they were having a race. Last highlight was seeing a large floating mass of something. I though it might be a bloated dead octopus/squid. John thought it was a large slug. We’ll never know.

Just checking my GPS I see we’re now 1,402nm from Horta in the Azores ? our planned landfall. Each 100nm is a kind of milestone. Problem is, our on board GPSs don’t agree on the distance remaining so we get to celebrate these milestones several times. I think the halfway point will be a big one. That’s still 2-3 days away.

Fri May 23 10:30GMT (7:30am ship time)
32?42.0N 55?14.8’W
SOG (Speed over Ground): 7.5 knots
Heading: 070
Distance from Bermuda: 418nm
Distance to Horta: 1,403nm

I’m back on standby. Squeezed in nearly 4 hours sleep since coming off watch at 3am this morning (ship time). We’re now sailing pretty close to the rhumb line ? the line of shortest distance between our current position and Horta. Not sure what the weather will bring today. Right now the skies are overcast but not too heavily. Would be nice if we can get another sunny day today.

My watch last night was uneventful. The moon kept me occupied for a while. The skies were mostly cloudy but had a few gaps in the cover. That meant sometimes the moon was not visible at all. Sometimes it had a big gap and the sea would shine a silver highway from the reflected moonlight. Somewhere in between sometimes I would see a patch of glistening moonlight some distance off as it’s light peaked through a gap I could not see.