Day 198, Year 6 Passage to the Carolinas, Day 4-Yucky
Date: Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Weather: Partly Cloudy; Winds NW 15 Knots and Building
Latitude: 24 01.154 N
Longitude: 069 48.436 W
Miles Traveled: 419
Miles to Go: 753
Location: Passage from Puerto Rico to Mainland USA
If I were 4 I think I would describe this day as . . . yucky. Since I’m 60 years older than that, I should probably be able to describe the day in a more adult manner. But I can’t. The winds are against us, we are beating into waves coming from the same direction as the wind, and even pushing the engine to 2200 RPMs we are having difficulty moving forward. It is just yucky! It could be much, much worse, so for that we are thankful. But we are still having to motor to make any progress, and even with that we are moving much more slowly than we would like. As I write this, the winds are increasing to 18 knots and we are off course going to the east to make any progress at all. For the second day in a row, Mark is trying to check into the weather net, but somehow they are not hearing us.
Break, break-As I was writing the above, dark clouds passed over head and the wind switched to the N. We have now tacked are SAILING!!! It is a hobby horse ride, but we now have the 15 knots of wind working a bit in our favor. If the wind would clock a bit more to the east we could go a bit faster. But for now we’ll give the engine a break and sail along at 4.5 knots. Interesting how everything can change in a matter of moments.
