It’s Wednesday morning and the beginning of our second day heading north in the middle of the Gulf Stream off of Florida, toward CT and home. With the exception of a few hours yesterday morning after leaving Nassau, we have been blessed with favorable winds and have been able to sail much of the way.
A few minutes ago, it’s 10:00, I turned on the engine as the winds have gone a bit light and I also needed to be sure that I was able to get a good charge on the batteries. While the solar panels keep things in good shape during the day, the batteries get quite a bit of user overnight. Between the navigation equipment and radar, combined with the drain from the autopilot, the batteries were in need of a good charge today. Yes, the solar panels would likely bring things up to snuff, I wanted to be sure that we have the batteries well topped up prior to evening and sunset. While the sun is adequate for keeping Pandora when we are on the go during the day and anchored at night, keeping her moving 24 hours a day is definitely a challenge to the batteries.
The winds are forecasted to be somewhat light, if from a favorable east/east southeast direction for the next few days, but today and Thursday will likely be a bit too light to really make time toward home. Good thing we have a reliable engine. However, we are expecting stronger winds overnight and tomorrow as well as strengthening winds on Thursday to keep us moving along, engine or not.
We are now in the middle of the Gulf Stream and this massive “salt water river” is giving us a three knot boost. Imagine the amount of water being moved northward when you consider that the stream is miles wide and at least a mile deep. That’s a massive amount of water and it’s moving north at the speed of a good energetic walk.
I have been given coordinates for the center of the stream by Chris Parker, our weather router, and will go from one waypoint to the next as we move northward. With luck, we will be able to stay in the center of the stream where the current is strongest until we exit around Cape Hatteras.
In our first 24 hours the winds weren’t that strong but good enough to keep us moving well with only a few hours of motoring. The log shows a total distance traveled as about 140 nautical miles. When I took a ruler to the chart it showed nearly 160 miles but that doesn’t take into account favorable currents which put miles under our keel that the log doesn’t capture. Whatever the distance covered, I’ll take it as we are making good time.
Last night boasted a half moon that stayed with us till around 03:00 and set dramatically, dark orange to the west. In spite of the bright moon, we were treated to a wonderful display of stars capped off by quite a few meteors. It takes several hours for your eyes to totally adapt to the dark and spending time aboard a darkened boat all night allows you to see things that you’d normally miss when exposed to artificial light at night.
From a wildlife standpoint, we have seen a few seabirds and plenty of flying fish skittering away from us as we moved along north, but little else.
I am hopeful that we will begin seeing dolphins as watching them dance around the boat is endlessly fascinating to me.
“Ok so you are now into day two. So, how long is this run going to take Bob?” Good question. Thanks for asking. So far, we have gone about 180 nautical miles out of a total of about 1,300 miles. And, if we are able to go about 170 miles per day that suggests that we will be home by Tuesday or Wednesday after a week underway.
We had thought about stopping but opted to continue along as it will delay us by at least two days if we stop and spend a night somewhere.
Happily, the three of us, Jim, Rich and me, are getting along well and the trip is enjoyable. They are both doing well in managing Pandora as we keep her moving day and night and happily, no bouts of seasickness so far.
Let’s hope that the favorable winds hold and even strengthen a bit to speed our trip. Here’s to no broken gear too on our Pandora, our little island in the stream.
So far, so good and it’s a beautiful day. Only about six more to go. Fingers crossed.