Atlantic Crossing Part III

31 December

“We are traveling across at the same time as about 6 other yachts and we are all in communication with each other every day during the morning sched then again after we listen to Herb the routing forecaster for the Atlantic. The blokes go to a chat channel afterwards and natter away like a knitting group about motors, stars, fishing and the like. Men hey!”




“Happy New Year! We celebrated in the cockpit with a very small Belgian beer each and a bag of chips! We have had a great day though, wind is 15-20 ENE and our speed is pretty good. The highlight of today was the double hookup of Mahi Mahi, Patti pulled the smaller one in on the handline. 15 mins later we managed to get the other fish to the boat which we both agreed was quite a bit bigger and far too much for us to deal with .We got the hook out and he swam away. The Smaller one that we kept was 1.4m long and weighed 25lbs. I don't think we will need to fish again on this trip! Position at 21.30 UTC 31Dec 15N 47W. We think we will probably change our destination to Antigua as there is a bad area of squalls to the south that we want to avoid and in doing so will be staying at around 15N ... perfect to go straight in to Antigua and will add less than a day to the trip (865miles to go)”

1 January 2006

“The lighter wind sailing was actually a lot harder than this 15 - 25 knots stuff we have now, we had to make lots of sail changes that takes its toll. New noon to noon record of 170 miles today. Only 580 miles to go to Antigua.”

3 January

“Another good day, still 20 knots from NE, Blue spotted a couple of big brown whales swimming along in the face of a big wave 100m from us. Position at 0540 UTC 3 Jan 15.54N 53.40W, 460 miles to go.”

4 January

“Position at 1130 utc : 16.25N 57.15W, 260 miles to go and we should be in by Fri morning, finally finished eating the huge Mahi Mahi so we can fish again. Fixed some torches otherwise all very nice and boring.”

5 January

“we have 135 miles to go to Antigua and we have run out of wind, drifting along at 4 knots. Might have to motor in as we want to clear customs on Friday afternoon rather than being stuck on the boat until Monday. Pretty quiet couple of days lately, got a few jobs done but ready to arrive now!”

6 January

“We are 3 miles off the entrance to English Harbor, Antigua. Its an overcast morning but quite calm and we are motoring, The island looks very green after the arid Canaries and Verdes. Yesterday I caught and released a Marlin! It was a small striped marlin (about 35kg), his first run was amazing, 300m grey hounding across the surface. We had enough time for me to get a gimbal and harness on and Blue got the boat turned around to start following before he slowed down. Later, Blue spotted a pod of False Killer Whales.

We made it!!”