July 13th, 2009

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Monday July 13

Monday, July 13th, 2009

At 19.20 hrs UTC I was at 25.11 N 36.00 W with 408 miles to go to Horta, a 64…. mile day. During the night the wind went even more east and I got set to the south instead of the NE. At 9 a.m. I tacked to the North and then the winds and seas calmed and I went from the 3 reef main and 60% jib, in a number of stages, to full main and the 140% genoa with about 10 knots of wind. I was able to sail much closer to the wind but the wind was still coming down the rhumb line. It was a beautiful sailing day, not a cloud in the sky. And sailing close hauled, with a decent heel and the steady movement over the waves beats all other sail directions. It reminds me of crossing the Straits of San Juan de Fuca. The foam rushing away from the bow, it makes me drowsy and wanting to take a nap on the foredeck. But when the wind dropped even more and I was barely squeezing 3 1/2 knots I turned the engine on at 4 p.m. and it looks I will be running it a while longer, till into the night. We have been promised westerlies for to-morrow. That will probably give me at least a 100 mile day. But then it’s back to head winds and they are prognosed to be in the 15/20 knot range and that means to rough to motor, so it will be tacking and that might put me back to 50 mile days and then I would arrive late Saturday. I told Ron Seiler to arrive in Horta on Saturday and his flight gets in at 9.15 Hopefully I’ll get lucky. Our rendez vous with Herb is at 23.00 hrs UTC. That is beyond my bed time but the propagation at the usual 19.30 schedule is too weak. I had a good dinner, rice seasoned with chicken cube, sautéed can of chicken in garlic and a can of leaf spinach and I added some dried pimentos from Jeannine’s garden.