After more than a week of sailing and never needing to turn on the motor, yesterday the wind died.   And after nearly a day of nursing Pandora along in ever lighter wind…

I finally reached the end of my rope when the log said that we had only gone 11 miles in three hours.  ENOUGH!  Engine on…

It does not take a lot of wind to sail Pandora at a good clip, pretty much 11kts on the beam and we will do around 6.5 to 7kts with her jib and full main, but with wind, if you could call it that, under 6kts, we were just wallowing along.  Not acceptable. 

Chris Parker works hard to help us stay in the “sweet spot” on passage, enough wind to avoid motoring and yet not so much, that the passage becomes unpleasant.

Slow sailing or not, both Ted and Jason built a lot of extra time into their schedules so their answer to being nearly becalmed is “we will get there someday”.  That is a refreshing position to take but late yesterday afternoon, hoping against hope, for just a little bit more wind, and still more than 400 miles to go, it was time to turn on the motor.

I will admit that the “we want to keep sailing” attitude was refreshing as, on several passages, I had crew that were all about keeping the speed up to make what was seeming like an impossible deadline and sometimes that meant running the engine even though we could probably have sailed.    More than once, we dropped the hook in Antigua and I ran crew ashore to catch a flight home that same day.   Was it something I said?

Fortunately, after motoring overnight the wind picked up again this morning, and we are making good time again.  I’m happy…

Our constant companions have been dolphins, and there are several species that have dropped by for a visit, keeping us entertained for much of the last few days.

I know that I have already posted several photos but indulge me as we have had dozens cavorting at the bow.  They arrive in a rush, dozens of them, hang out for about 15-20 minutes only to be on their way in a moment.

My SLR camera has “sports mode” that takes two frames a second and with image stabilization makes it possible to catch their antics.  

As in much of life, try hard enough, and in the case of photos, take enough of them, and you will end up with a few good ones. 

Jason, on the other hand, was easy to catch in action as he watched the dolphin show.  It is hard to say who was having more fun, Jason, or the dolphins.

It is very hard to get a photo that shows the beautiful patterns on their sides.   Caught one…

Ted has a favorite spot to watch for whales.  “Bob, come quick, I saw a whale.”  Quick was not quick enough as the best I could get is a blurry shot of steam on the water, and a crooked horizon.  Trust me, it was a whale…

Of course, sunrises are always cooperative.

Motoring?  Well, for a while, but at least I can say that I sailed most of the way…

From what I have heard about this passage, “only a little motoring” is saying something. 

Two more days to go, I think…

Of course, that depends on the wind.

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.

Today I turned 70 and we are still over 400 miles from Horta.  Progress today has been glacial, with very little wind.  All is not lost as the wind is supposed to pick up by tomorrow.

The good news is that with light wind comes calm seas, all the better for baking a birthday cake.

With my “special day” I had to think that this beautiful sunset was just for me.

Or the large pod dolphins that stopped to say Hi! and the Humpback Whale waving his fin in the distance, wishing me a special day. 

Given the fact that there is NOBODY nearby, who else could they be here for? 

The stars were out in force, a nearly full moon, and this beautiful sunrise.

And Portuguese Man-O-War passing us by every few minutes.  This photo is a bit clearer than the one I posted the other day.  What a remarkable creature.  Hard to believe that they are so deadly.  

Here I am, yet another year older and firmly in the category where special medical considerations are directed to people like me, the “frail and elderly.”   Ok, I cannot deny (mostly) that I am elderly but I do not accept the label of “frail” quite yet.

During my last Medicare checkup, the clinician asked me if I had fallen recently.  That is a tough one.  Was she talking about getting off the toilet or from the top of the mast when I was fixing a wind instrument? Negative on both, BTW. 

She also asked me if I had been threatened recently by my partner.  Hmm… Had to think about that one. Only when I first brought up the idea of sailing across the Atlantic.  

I have always been a big fan of bran cereal so I can say with confidence that, according to “age appropriate” dietary recommendations, my preference of cereal has finally caught up with my age.

And then there is the whole you are “only as old as you feel” thing.  Not sure how I fit that…  Today, when my alarm went off at 02:45 to go on watch, I did not feel great and moved a bit slowly, well only until I suddenly realized how badly I had to “go.” and then I moved barely quick enough. Whew!

Ok, ok, my bladder is getting a bit frail but the rest of me feels ok, well mostly.  Besides, what better place for a guy with a bladder that has shrunk to the size of a dry garbanzo bean, than on a boat where the head is only steps away.   Very practical, if you ask me.

Give me a minute… I’ll be right back…

Ok, better.   Just had to pee…

Where was I? 

Oh yeah, today is my 70^th birthday and here I am at sea, coming up on the end of the longest ocean run ever. 

I will admit that I would prefer to be with Brenda, the same thing I said on Mother’s Day, and our 48^th wedding anniversary recently.  Perhaps others but I can’t recall right now. We will have to catch up and celebrate all those missed events when she arrives in Horta.

Now it seems that I am deep into the age group when folks like me are referred to as “the elderly” I find the whole thing quite unsettling and it was not all that long ago, when I was in the “upper middle age” category, that I would have loudly scoffed at anyone at 70 decided to sail across the Atlantic.

Perhaps in honor of my advanced age and coming frailty, the wind overnight lightened considerably so now I am not as confident that we will arrive during daylight on the 11^th.  That is Ok as I do not like the idea of arriving in a strange port with poor visibility. 

So, slowly, we continue to sail along, 450 miles from our destination.  Now the only real question, aside from how old I will be once we get there, is how long it will be until better wind conditions catch up with us and we can get moving again.

Besides, what better way for an old guy to get around than on a machine that only goes 5 miles per hour?

It was nice to talk to Brenda today via Starlink but for some reason it took a lot longer to boot up and, for about 20 minutes, I feared the worse.  Perhaps it is getting old.  Hmm…

Next stop, with as good visibility as possible and before I get any older, Horta.

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.

We are just over 600 miles from Horta and moving along nicely at 6-8kts over the bottom in about 9-12kts of wind.  With a slight current in our favor, we continue to make good time.

I am tempted to say that we are “almost there” as having “only” 600 miles left on a run of 2,000 miles seems like “close” even if it is still quite far away.  Think New York to Chicago far.   

Anyway, I am going with close as we are currently sailing along at a good clip so life is good.  Ask me how far it is if the wind drops and we are just flopping around making no progress.  Then I can assure you, I will feel that we are nowhere near Horta.

The sunrise this morning, and there is not a lot, other than that, to take pictures of out here, was, well, it was a sunrise.  We had showers and a lot of clouds but now it is sunny.

I also discovered that I am just about out of clean underwear so it was time to do a bit of washing.  Actually, I washed them yesterday and they did not dry.  It is breezy but humid.  I hope that they dry today.  Jason and Ted have made it clear that they hope so as well…

I wrote yesterday about how Chris Parker, our weather router, commented that Pandora was in just about the perfect spot to take advantage of light to moderate winds as we make our way east and said that if things continue as they are, we may not have to motor at all.   Here we are, a few days later, and it is looking good that the run will play out as predicted.   Of course, that assumes no broken stuff.

To that point, we do a “walk around” every day to be sure that there are no signs of chafe or imminent breakage and at least three times now we have made a few modifications to line leads or repairs to address chafe.

And speaking of chafe, I will be contacting a sailmaker in Horta to get some repairs done on my mainsail and perhaps the jib.  It is amazing how much wear and tear there is on a boat that is run 24/7 for two weeks at sea. 

Someone once told me that there is more wear and tear on a boat that is lived aboard, in a single year, than one that is “day sailed” on weekends and vacations for a full decade.   And, Pandora has surely been used plenty.  This season alone I will have covered well over 5,000nm by the time she is hauled in Almeria, Spain.   

I am also confident, and not in a good way, that we have spent way more on Pandora than most will ever spend on their boats in a single year.  Best not to think about that right now…

So, back to Chris’s routing suggestions to avoid a lot of motoring. 

He instructed us to make our way to 41 degrees north and to head east from that point.  We reached 40N yesterday afternoon and are now running due east down the parallel.    By taking this approach, we hope to skirt just north of the windless zone and just south of the strong winds to our north.  The goal is to stay in what I will call the “goldilocks zone”, not too much or too little wind.

The hope is that we will have enough wind to sail on a beam to broad reach (wind from beam to stern quarter) to continue to push us east.  So far, so good…

The dilemma is that if we go too fast, we will outrun the wind as it fills in from the west.  In a way it is self-correcting as our speed is based on the wind.  And, if we go to fast, less wind will slow us down and allow the better winds to catch up.   In theory anyway…

So far, so good.  Details to come…

Fortunately, the most recent run of the GRIBS (graphic wind files) suggest that this strategy will play out and we should, I hope, I really hope, be able to make the entire run with little or no motoring. 

The plan is to continue to move eastward along, or slightly north of, the 41^st parallel until the wind clocks from the south to the west and fills in out of the northwest.   At that point, when we are perhaps 200nm from our destination, we will turn to the SE and head directly for Horta. 

As we enter the second week of our passage we have covered a bit more than 1,200 miles at an average speed of a bit over 7kts, which is amazing.  To that point, that is the farthest that I have ever sailed without turning on the engine, by a lot.

Unlike passages to the Caribbean, where we tend to turn on the engine every time the wind gets light, to keep on schedule, on this passage we have been encouraged to be patient so that we will not outrun the wind and end up having to motor through the windless zones.  To try and keep moving would force us ahead of the wind and put us in a position where we would be forced to motor beyond our fuel range. 

All of this goes against my grain as I am generally an impatient person so the experience has been a learning experience.  So far, in a positive way.   Ask me again if the wind dies 🙁

As I mentioned before, a number of boats left a day ahead of us and given our good fortune we have closed the gap with them, well at least with those that have not turned on their motors to keep moving.  So, as they lost their wind, we gained ours. 

Over the next few days Chris feels that the fleet will tighten up and most of the boats should arrive within a day or two of the same date.   There are now a total of 10 boats in the fleet with one just leaving Bermuda, a week after the rest of us due to personal timing issues and weather delays.  Another has been forced to drop out of the rally as they had to turn back and are now stuck in Bermuda waiting for parts for a broken sail furler.

I heard earlier today that because of his delay, he has lost his crew as they “timed out” and need to head home.  I can only imagine how frustrating that must be for the skipper as he does his best to organize the arrival of repair parts, a new crew, that he has not even identified yet, along with a new weather window once everyone arrives.    

And, as June is the beginning of the hurricane season, there is also the issue of an early season storm spooling up toward Bermuda and into his path to the Azores.   Sounds very complicated and I would be stressing.   All of this reminds me of the anxiety I was feeling in St Maarten with my own mechanical issues, thinking that I might have to bag the entire trip.

However, we are well on our way and given the growing certainty that the bulk of the fleet will arrive sometime between next Tuesday and Thursday, it will soon be time to consider scheduling arrival events. 

In addition to some informal happy-hour events, we will have an arrival diner as well as an event at a friend’s home on the nearby island, Pico, a short, 15-20 minute, ferry ride from Horta.  

With Brenda arriving on the 16^th, it may be hard to hold off on those two events to allow for her to participate as she will not be there until perhaps as much as 5-6 days after the fleet has made landfall.

A lot of this will depend on what the other boats are planning, how long they will remain in Horta before heading east to the Med or to northern Europe or if they have crew changes that will keep them in Horta for a while. 

When we booked Brenda’s flight months ago, I never imagined that we would be in Horta before her arrival, now perhaps by a full week, as Chris told us that this run usually takes between two and two and a half weeks, involves lots of motoring and probably a gale or two. 

Fingers crossed that things will continue to go well with the weather and that nothing breaks.

So, for now, as we have for the last week, we continue to sail along, making good progress toward Horta.

Oh yeah, one more thing. 

As all of my long-distance passages have been north and south, I have never had to think about time zone changes, beyond the seasonal “daylight savings time” issue and going from east coast and Atlantic zone.

On this passage we will make our way through three time zones, from Atlantic Time to Horta, which is four hours ahead of New York.  This means that we have had to estimate when to turn the clocks forward to ensure that when we approach Horta we well be acclimated. 

So, where to change the clock?  Well, I am glad you asked and here is how we decided to handle things.

The world is round, 360 degrees, and there are 24 hours in a day.  So, divide 360 by 24 and you get 15 degrees of longitude between time zones.  I think that is right.  Anyway, we took the degrees between Bermuda, 64 degrees west, and Horta 28 degrees west, divided by 3 which is the number of time zones and you get 12 degrees, sort of what we are looking for.   We know what time it is in Bermuda and also in Horta so the real issue is where to change the clocks.   So, to divide things up we chose, perhaps a bit arbitrability, that we will move the clock forward by an hour at 42W and 35W.

To that point, we just passed 42W and my iPad has automatically changed so I guess I am right.  It’s magic.  Sort of like a thermos, I guess.  

Ok.  Time to move the other clocks ahead and again one more time in about 300 more miles to get on the same time zone as Horta. 

One more thing.  Jason has his heart set on catching a fish and we have trailed a line for three days now and not a single bite. 

We did see a humpback whale though but it was too far away for a photo.  All we saw was his big pectoral fin splashing the water a few times. 

I am told that near the Azores is a hotbed for whale watching so perhaps we will get lucky and have a closer encounter.  Not too close…I Hope.

Somehow 600 miles does not seem all that far away, for now anyway.  Ask me again tomorrow…

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.

Today started out mostly cloudy but now it’s become a beautiful sunny day.  The clouds to the north were quite dramatic shortly after sunrise today. 

A natural question to ask on passage, beyond “when will we get there?” is how far from land are you.  While the answer to the first question is perhaps next Wednesday, the answer to the second question is clearer, close to Point Nemo.

Later this afternoon, Pandora will be at her furthest point from land in any direction than she will find herself at any point during this passage.  The traditional definition of “Point Nemo” is the point on the planet that is farthest from land in any direction.

The actual Point Nemo is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near Pitcarin Island where Fletcher Christian of Mutiny on the Bounty fame, made landfall. 

Another definition has to do with finding the most inaccessible point on the planet, such as the North or South Pole.  I’m going with Point Nemo.

Interestingly, “Nemo” means Nobody in Latin, but that’s another story.

Check out more on Point Nemo here.

This is named after the fictional character, Captain Nemo, in the book by Jules Vern “20 leagues under the sea.”

While Pandora’s Point Nemo is not technically the world’s most remote place, it is Pandora’s most remote place now and EVER as I have no illusion that I will be crossing the Pacific Ocean.

It is Friday morning and it definitely, totally, for sure, feels like we are in the middle of nowhere, 500 miles from the closest land, in this case Newfoundland.

For all practical purposes, we are completely alone except for the occasional ship that passes on the horizon and even the dolphins have abandoned us today.  

And speaking of ships, if we had any difficulty and had to activate our EPIRB, Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, they would be asked to divert and assist us.

No chopper to come to someone’s rescue out here as their operating radius is about 350 miles from shore.

So, exactly where in the world is Pandora?

We are 1,000nm from our home in CT and 2,000nm from Trinidad, where I began this journey in April. 

To continue with distances…

We are closer to Horta, 770nm than from Bermuda, 1,100nm, where we departed for this leg last Saturday.

It is safe to say that we are really, really far from everything but the most unsettling distance of all is the distance from Pandora to the ocean floor, over 16,500 feet down. 

I wonder how long it would take for a penny tossed overboard to fall that distance?  A boat?  Best not to think about that…

Setting that aside, and I must, there is not much going on today unless you count that the wind direction and speed instruments that stopped working.

It took a while but I was able to solve the problem after fussing with wires for about and hour.   I am not certain what the actual fix was beyond a bad connection but they do work now.  

With the operative phrase “for now”. 

As is often said, “everything on a boat is broken, you just don’t know it yet.” 

Sadly, no truer words have been spoken.

Wherever we are, it is nice to know that the “end is near”, of the trip that is, and that we can begin to have confidence about when we will arrive in Horta. 

One thing that I am becoming more confident of is that we will likely beat Brenda’s arrival on the 16^th by a few days. 

For now, where are we?  Near Pandora’s Point Nemo.  Of that I am certain.

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.

So far, so good and Pandora has made it to the half way point of our 1,800nm run to Horta.  

Since departing from Bermuda, we have been doing very well with daily runs of just under 180 miles, at an average speed of 7.5 kts.   That is quite respectable but the second half is likely to be a LOT slower.

The crew is getting along well and meal planning seems to be acceptable with a decent, I think, variety.  How many ways can you eat pasta?

Some live-to-eat and others, eat-to-live.  Fortunately, the crew of Pandora are in the latter camp which simplifies meal planning, a lot.

There is not a lot to see out here except water but several times today we were treated to a show by some curious dolphins.  They arrived in a rush, danced around the bow, and were gone just as quickly as they arrived. 

It is remarkably difficult to get a shot of them despite their constant antics.

A few shots, if a bit blurry…

Jason and Ted were also trying their best to get a good photo.

We have also seen loads of Portuguese Man-O-War jellyfish.

Earlier today we had to pull down the mainsail as the line that tensions the leech, the aft end of the sail, had chafed through.  Without this line in place, we could not put tension on the leech and the aft end of the sail was fluttering badly.  In the grand scheme of things, it is a minor issue, but the constant fluttering of the fabric would have weakened it badly.

We were able to prepare a temporary fix but the sail will need servicing in Horta.  Oh Well…

At night we split watches with the first beginning when it gets dark, until 22:00.  The second watch from 22:00 to 03:00 and then I take over until the crew wakes up, generally between 07:00 and 08:00.  During the day, nothing formal is needed as someone is always in the cockpit.

For sleeping, I have modified the aft cabin with a board in the middle to allow for comfortable sea berths.  It is a bit tight, but is working out well. 

As I write this, Thursday morning, we continue to head ENE to a waypoint of about 41N, which will put us far enough north to catch better wind and yet not so far north to make for a lot of extra miles or run into gales. 

Horta is located at 38N so we are heading a bit north of that and then will turn to the East and then back down toward Horta to take advantage of a better wind angle.  I hope that this strategy will pay off.  

From the beginning of the run Chris has focused on the importance of being in what I will call the “Goldilocks zone” where we are far enough north to catch favorable winds and yet not too far north to add extra miles to the passage or put us in winds that are too strong.

As of this morning, Chris has become more specific about the best strategy depending on where each of the boats in the fleet is located and given the large windless zone between us and Horta, where each boat lies is particularly important.

Some of the boats left the afternoon before we did and a few others after us.  So, now that we are into our 5^th day from Bermuda the “best” place to be is becoming clearer and, as luck would have it, that is pretty much where Pandora is.  Lucky us…

Because we decided to delay our departure from Bermuda by 12 hours to let a band of squalls clear out, we seem to have the good fortune of finding ourselves in the “sweet spot” for catching the best wind. 

If things play out as expected, Chris believes that we may only have to motor for the last 24 hours of the trip and will have sailed almost the entire 2,000 miles.  Well, we will see about that…

In past years I have motored for as much as 130 hours to make the 1,500-mile run from Hampton, VA to Antigua, the prospect of only 24 hours of motoring on a 2,000-mile-long passage sounds unbelievably lucky. 

Had we been even 100 miles farther north, or south, of our current position we would not be as well positioned to catch the best conditions and our motoring time would likely be at least several days, a big difference for sure.

Who knows when we will arrive in Horta, but for planning purposes, I am estimating somewhere between June 11^th or 12^th, for a passage time of under two weeks.  That would be amazing as I was expecting the run to be somewhere between 14 and 17 days. 

Of course, it is hard to say exactly what will happen, but for now, based on what Chris has suggested, that is my best guess.

As of now, both the Euro and US weather models are in pretty good agreement so that suggests that conditions will play out as Chris is suggesting. 

Are we in the right place at the right time, what I will call the Goldilocks zone? 

Time will tell.

It always does.

Editor: You can see where Pandora and the others in the Salty Dawg Rally fleet are in real time, at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.