This is our second full day out and we have gone about 300 miles, not a lot. This first 24 hours was pretty sporty but now we are moving along at a more leisurely pace of between 5-7kts in basically an easterly direction.
Whenever you head to sea you can only really know what to expect for the first 3-5 days and after that, it’s hard to know as the forecasts just aren’t accurate that far into the future.
We expect to head into an area of very light wind that will likely persist for a few days and after that, perhaps winds that will be pretty much on the nose. Hopefully those SE winds won’t be too strong and we really don’t know what we will encounter after that.
Normally, the prevailing winds in the northern Caribbean are from the east, sometimes from the ENE and others, the ESE but mostly from the east. But, given the expectation that we will be doing a good deal of motoring, we have to conserve fuel as best as we can now, even if that means moving along more slowly than we’d like.
Last night was frustrating as the wind dropped a good deal and then veered from the south to the north with a good amount of time directly behind us. running before relatively light winds in a confused sea was frustrating. Fortunately, things have improved.
With conditions more settled now but with light winds, I decided to try and use the Hydrovane wind vane stearing unit, and that’s going pretty well. I haven’t had a great deal of luck with it in the past but now it’s going better.
I am waiting to get an updated weather forecast and will have a better feel for where I should head next. For the moment, I am trying to make as much easting as I can to take advantage of the easterly trade winds when they finally fill in.
I guess that’s about it for now.
Wish us luck as we continue to plug along.