Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Day 2 to FP - Stalled

:lat=-1.95:lon=-92.14:
Time: 2315UTC, COG 240T, SOG 3.5kts, Distance Remaining: 2812nm

Yesterday, we motored about an hour to get clear of the land and reefs,
before we pulled the sails out and settled in. Autopilot on 225 degrees,
fishing lines out, sails trimmed for the current conditions. Blue, sunny
skies, some wind. After our set-up was configured - we were barely gone for
two hours - Mark said: "Now what?" Well, we just sail, for 25 days or so!
Make that 26. Or more. At midnight, the wind totally died, sails flapping,
boom banging and lines creaking. We didn't want to motor, so we took the
whole lot down and drifted. For 7 hours. It was very quiet on the water. The
current pushed us in the right direction, at 1 knot an hour. Luckily, the
swell was benign. Other than some breathing sea lions, nothing could be
heard. The sky had a million stars. It was cold and every surface outside
was soaking wet.
Irie left Isabela with SV Liward, but they turned their engine on all night,
creating an uncorrectable gap of 35 miles between us. Around 7:00am, the
breeze "filled in" and it blew a whopping 2-3 knots from the SE. Not enough
for our wind meter to register. We fell off a bit and rigged the spinnaker
(our light sail) up. Our course changed to 240 degrees and we are still
moving along at 2 knots. About a third of what we hoped to do. At this
speed, it will take us 63 days to get there!

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