Less than 1000 miles to the Azores
Another marker has passed, our GPS is now counting down from 972 NM and closing in with an average of 6 knots per hour. Less than 1000 miles to sail before we arrive in the first European harbour in over 1 year and 1 month. Too bad that the wind has left us dangling a little bit and we are still under engine.
The depression in the north that is causing this huge swell we are still experiencing has also caused a disturbance in the last bit of our favorable trade winds. Our weather reports says that it will even move the Azores high more to the south, which is going to cause another big wind gap in a few days. With a bit of luck and speed we will already be north of the high by that time, consequence is that we cannot be any slower than 6 knots right now.. The southerly breeze that had been picking up since this evening is not enough to get us there, or even to fill our sails in this swell. Hopefully by morning it will have become the fresh south westerly breeze they have predicted!
This afternoon we let all the sails down, with absolutely no wind they were only hanging and flapping in the waves. This way some work could be done on sails and ropes. Sam worked on the mizzen mast; climbing up and down. While Gijs worked on the mainsail, checking for chafing spots and old seams coming lose.
It is a cloudy night, warm but damp.
Today the Oosterschelde, one of our other Dutch Tall Ships fleet will be arriving back home in Rotterdam. We hope they have an amazing day and a good reunion with friends and family back home! Looking forward to seeing them in Harlingen!!
Sailing downwind with a nice ocean breeze
The miles on our GPS are counting down rapidly as we are sailing again. This morning a light breeze started and pushed through after sunrise. After watch handover at 06:00 we set all the sails again and were soon doing 6 knots downwind in the right direction. The wind increased and we even hit the 9 knots during the afternoon when the wind turned to a south south westerly. 820 NM to the Azores.
We had a beautiful day with sunshine and wind. The noise of the engine was soon forgotten as the Tecla was swaying once again on the motion of the waves and the wind. A returning discussion on board is about the fragrance factories sell as Ocean Breeze.. Today was a nice ocean breeze, but we did not smell anything even close to the stuff in the bottle.. even when we hung our fresh washing out it did not catch a whiff of the ocean breeze they sell. Whatever gave them the idea the ocean would smell like a mix of eucalyptus and mint?
The fishing has come to a bit of a stop as ENORMOUS fishes have slowly eaten our fishing gear, but they never hang around for us to see how enormous they are.. Yesterday one off our last lures got destroyed by the only fish that stayed long enough for us to see who did the damage. It was a meter long, green/silvery eel like fish with huge teeth! Tony tried to get the fish on board as Gijs was getting a glove, but just as he tried to pull the fish on board, the fish broke free and disappeared into the deep blue sea… Luckily there is still enough food in the freezer…
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