Monthly Archives: November 2023

We are in our fourth day at sea and are only about a third of the way to Antigua and we are in a holding pattern.  I had hoped that the entire run would take about ten days but now it’s looking like it could be 12-13.  Not great.

Conditions were a bit sporty last night but not too bad with gusty winds going rapidly from 10kts to 20 and back again, hour after hour.  And, we had a 2kt current on our nose so progress was slow.

However, things have settled down now as we slowly sail east trying not to go too far before we head south again. 

The guys up in the cockpit enjoying a nice day and not trying to think too much about how much farther we still have to go.

The biggest problem is that there is a low forming to the south, between us and Bermuda that is expected to bring winds in the 30-40kt range with gusts in squalls to 50kts.  Not great and gusts at those levels can break stuff.

In order to avoid all of this, Chris said that we need to stay north of 37 degrees north until the front passes, perhaps sometime overnight on Sunday.  As it’s not even noon on Saturday and we are at that latitude, we decided just to sail east to kill time.

As we are already as far south as he recommends, while we wait for the front to pass, we have to sail perpendicular to our intended course and wait until things improve to the south.

We have been in a similar position over the years and a number of times over the years and delays where we sail east, instead of south, can add days to a trip.   Once we begin to head south again, there will be a few days of motoring and that’s slow too as I can’t really go much faster than 6kts without burning a lot of fuel. Sailing in good conditions are generally in the 8-9kt range, a lot faster than motoring.

The good news is that once we reach the easterly trades, perhaps 600 miles north of Antigua,  we should be able to cover a lot of ground with upwards of 20kts on the beam which may allow us to make nearly 200 miles a day.   On our run south last fall, we had a number of days where we came close to that distance so it might happen. 

So, here we are, jogging to the east, waiting for better conditions. 

Other than a frustrating delay, all remains good aboard Pandora, even if things are a bit trashed in her cabin. 

The US weather model, GFS, says that the low won’t clear out until early Monday morning while the European model says that things should clear up perhaps 12 hours sooner.   Chris often favors the Euro so fingers crossed.  He did say that he’d send out an update later today so we will see how things develop. It would be good to get moving in the right direction, sooner than later.

With Starlink, which is working pretty well, we can also download the models and see them ourselves.  Seeing the graphics does make it a lot easier to interpret what Chris is suggesting. 

Here’s what he said about the risk of being too far south, too soon.

“There is a large potential risk for vessels to lie S of 37N or 37-30N Sun5, and with favorable weather thereafter, no need to assume that risk.” 

I’m taking his advice.

Today’s sunrise, over a calm sea and us in the middle of the Gulf Stream was beautiful.

Matt is all better now.  Two days of not feeling particularly well but now back in the swing. 

He had been turning up his nose at most food choices and I was a little fearful that perhaps he was what we might call a “selective eater”.  Nope, not at all now that he is feeling his old self.  (not as old as me and Peter, BTW) It does seem that he is an omnivore with a preference for M&Ms and Kit Kats 🙂

Anyway, we crossed the Gulf Stream overnight and could hardly tell except that the water temperature abruptly went from the low 60s to the 80s.  When I crossed the Stream in the spring it was very bumpy with a 30-40 knot southerly wind with gusts to 50.  With less than ten knots of wind last night, not quite the same.

We turned on the engine yesterday at noon and here we are, more than 24 hours later and still motoring along.  Chris Parker had given us coordinates for a very narrow favorable part of an eddy that was supposed to give us a push of a few knots.  However, we did not find it and instead have a persistent 1-2kt current against us.

However, that is not so bad, setting aside the endless motoring and little to no wind, as there is expected to be an area to the south of us in a few days that will bring near gale force winds from the NE.  The wind direction is not expected to be a problem as it will have us on a broad reach, but strong winds 30-40kts and add in some squalls to 50kts and it’s something that we’d prefer to avoid. 

By getting near Bermuda a bit later will help us avoid those conditions, I hope.  I will say that the forecasts have been changing virtually every day but the expected winds between here in Antigua should be mostly favorable, at least when there is wind. 

As of now, we expect to be motoring off and on for at least an additional 40-50 hours with intervals of good sailing in between.  With some luck we will hit the easterly trade winds about 300-400 miles north of Antigua and they will, hopefully, be under 20kts on the beam.  Fingers crossed.

We do not expect to need a stop in Bermuda as we have plenty of fuel.  I really do not know exactly what my fuel burn rate is with the new prop, but I expect it to be a bit higher than with the last propeller. 

With an estimate of say, .8GPH, I should be able to get at least 220 hours of motoring out of 180 gallons of fuel and the most motoring I have ever done on this run was 110 hours and that was on a trip with a lot more light air and dead zones than this run is expected to have. 

So far, I have motored a lot but I have only gone less than 300 miles and there is still a lot more distance to cover. 

Of course, forecasts change and perhaps this one will as the models don’t agree anyway. Key to keep our options open and not go to fast. What will happen? Time will tell…

However, I am a card-carrying member of the “cup is half full club”, so it’s going to be just fine. 

Perhaps it is too soon to say that we will have an uneventful trip, but it is day three and all is well with Pandora and crew.

It’s Thursday afternoon and we are nearly 200 miles into our trip.  That sounds like a long way but when you consider that the entire trip, not counting adverse currents that will slow us down, is about 1,550 miles. we are barely into it.

Put it another way and we are less than 15% of the way to Antigua.  To look at the chart, the distance we have covered is painfully small, considering how much lays ahead of us.

We left the Essex Yacht Club at 09:00 yesterday and made our way down the 6 miles to the river mouth and into Long Island Sound.  It was a dreary morning, cloudy with a light mist.

As we passed out of The Sound and rounded Montauk light.  The wind picked up from the ENE, putting us on a deep broad reach in 20-25kts.  That point of sail is not very comfortable and after a few hours Matt was feeling pretty uncomfortable and ended up “feeding the fish” more than a few times. 

It wasn’t until about 04:00 today that he was able to hold down something so that he could take a Stugeron, for the nausea, which seemed to work pretty well for him. 

Here he is, lounging and reading a book. 

A few hours ago we turned on the engine and it looks like we will be motoring until sometime tomorrow.  The computer weather app suggests that we will end up motoring about 2.5 days out of the 10 so days or so that it should take us to make the run to Antigua.  That’s about right as I have taken as little as 10 days and as much as 13 to do the southbound run.

Peter is on watch now and dressed for the chilly temps. 

It will be quite chilly, until we reach the Gulf Stream, with 80 degree water.  To keep the chill at bay, I cranked up the diesel heater.  It worked well and kept the chill off.   The water north of the GS is about 60 and the transition from cold to tropical is quite abrupt.

For the rest of the run we expect to have wind peaking in the high 20s to low 30s and also periods of no wind.   Overall, I expect that we will likely motor some 75 hours, about what I would expect for this run.   The good news is that we are hopeful that we will be able to head in mostly a straight line, nearly due south so not a lot of meandering around, I hope.

This is the first run where I have had Starlink when the service had been well worked out.  On the run north last spring, it was all new and the usage plans were not well defined.  For the run north, I signed up for a maritime plan at a cost of $250/month for not a lot of data and after that $2GB.  I didn’t really understand the plan and ended up using up all my data and then some, racking up a $350 bill for the month.   I now understand that I don’t have to change to a maritime plan and can just opt in for the $2GB on top of my normal $150/month mobile plan.  We will see how that works out.

Yesterday when we were still fairly close to land, the normal plan was working fine but earlier this morning, when I was on my 04:00 to 08:00 watch, I wanted to “toggle” on the $2GB ocean option but could not identify how to do it on the mobile app.  After about 2 hours of messing around, Matt suggested that I try going to the Starlink website on my browser and see if I could make the change there.  While the internet was blocked, the Starlink website itself was not, and we were in business.

The unit is still slow to acquire satellites but is working much better than last spring.  I understand that Starlink has modified the software so that the RV unit that I have, as opposed to the Maritime unit that uses twice the power, works better now on the ocean and “in motion”.

We will see how that goes for the rest of the trip but putting up this post is evidence that the unit is working.  What I don’t know yet, is how far that $2/GB will go and what my bill this month will end up being.  Details to come on that front.

It’s been pretty uneventful with the exception of it being quite rolly with large swells along with a number of mild squalls last night with heavy rain.   I am expecting that the next day or so of motoring will end when the wind picks up later tomorrow, into the 20s. 

So, one day into our run and not a lot to report.  Let’s hope that continues.

At the very least, we left, finally…