What a day. I got to talk a person!!!! Which instanteniously became a good friend of mine. His boat Acrtorous is headed to GA, or at least N of 30deg N for insurance purposes. Nobody could hear Chris Parker with any clearity, but luckily I got a grib chart off of HF radio email, and I am finally seeing now whats happening to the wind! I got 3 gif files with my region. Arrows point in the direction of the wind. Feathers on arrows indicate wind strength. Im in the middle of a region of colliding arrows with half feather or no feathers. Means stalling cold front, killed the trades, as a result no wind for few days. I am exactly at the half-way point between Salinas, PR and West Palm, FL. The encouraging news is that gif files for 48h and 72h window have arrows pointing from E-SE with 1 and a half feathers on them. That means in 2 - 3 days I'll have 15kts out of E-SE. Really 3 days????? What am I gonna do till then? So if this holds, the trades will set on monday. The question remains, will I make it in by Saturday for Willis(the marina dockmaster, which later turned out to be an idiot) to assign me a slip? I have 500NM to go. I can motor for about 27 hours. I can motor right now, but what if there's no wind on monday? There is also a weak cold front arriving to FL on thursday which will also likely kill the trades. Sometimes its better to be dumb and lucky then smart and unlucky.
I made a decision. I will leave the engine for thursday/friday time-frame, and I will run it now for about two hours per night, just to keep batteries happy, and fridge running. Last night was tough, I was in the middle of shipping lanes with tankers passing by often. Its the entrance to windward passage so there's Haiti, DR, bahamas, Cuba and Guantanamo bay there, so of course there's gonna be heavy shipping there. I am just hoping that whomever is standing watch on these gigantic metal monster cans, can actually pick me up on a radar. Chances are they are probably sleeping. In the meantime, I raised my retro-reflector as high as I could and hoped for the best.
I did manage to sleep for about two hours last night. In the morning there were more tankers, but by mid day, I was out of the danger area, and I haven't seen one the rest of the day.
Its early evening, and the spirits are high once again, the wind veered by some miracle, and is now giving me a lift, instead of coming straight abaft. I was now on a broad reach doing 3-4kts and seas are completely flat. Sleeping in these conditions feels better then a rocking cradle. I wonder how Vlad would sleep in such conditions?We'll find out soon!!!
Another amazing thing I did this evening, is to have a barbeque with two burgers, and some roasted green peppers. It had to be the most amazing feeling, smoking barbeque with burgers, smooth glide, broad reach on a mirror-like water, and a 360deg view of the horizon with not a cloud in sight!!! I pulled out the cockpit table and had a feast! This is life. I was sooo tempted to open a frosty medalla, but had to content myself with cold coke. tired, sleep deprived, and with so much at hand, I didn't dare drinking a beer. But I am looking forward to tonight, I am out of the shipping lanes, seas are flat, and if this light breeze persists, it would be like I got myself a luxury sweet on a cruise ship, accept without all the old-farts and anoying plugged-in people. I still have plenty of water and I might treat myslef to a fresh water shower tonight!!!
So the big decision to make is weather to cut over the grand bahama banks, or take the old bahama channel(OBC). Arctourus is taking OBC since its 1-2kts of current, but its quite a bit longer and its deeper water, there's traffic, and the seas are probably lumpy. The good thing is that you jump into the gulf stream earlier. I have added new waypoints into the gps to keep me outside of OBC shipping lanes, in case I decide to take the OBC. My ultimate decision will depend on the grib charts i receive on tuesday. I will go whichever way has more wind. As I am so drained by the calms of last few days.