25:14.32 N 23:04.07 W
California Blue
Mark Bashforth / Jayson Bashforth
Wed 28 Nov 2007 17:11
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Blog nr. 3 from California Blue - We Got
Wind 28/11-07
Hello Everyone!
Hurray the wind finally came today and we feel like
we are sailing in the trades for real now!
So here's what's new:
Last night's dinner - beef potato burritos ala Vic
was awesome. We were so hungry from struggling with the Parasailor all day that
there wasn't a scrap of food left - yum yum.
After dinner we settled down into our regular
routines of watches. It goes dark out here around 18:30-19:00 and the first
watch starts at 20:00.
We had some decent performance out of the
Parasailor given extremely light wind conditions during the night. The wind
ranged from 4-10 knots and we managed between 4-8 knots in speed. Pretty
impressive really.
The problem however was that the wind was very
inconsistent throughout the evening varying from 90-160 degrees off of
starboard and changed within moments. This meant that whoever was on watch had
to constantly (stare till your cross eyed) at the wind angle instrument to
ensure that we didn't collapse or foul the Parasailor. During my watch alone I
must have adjusted our course over 50 times by changing the course +/- 10
degrees at a time. This occurrence became so common I likened it to a cheap
video game "don't drop your Parasailor in the ocean" knowing full well if we did
the result wouldn't come cheap!
Bet me I don't buy a Raymarine wind vane driven
auto pilot when I get back to Houston!
Jayson saw one boat on his watch (20:00-00:00)
according to our AIS receiver it was a 140 foot pleasure craft bound for St
Maarten. Otherwise we only had the moon for company which we didn't see until
after 22:00.
Anyway, this morning the weather improved. Chris
Tibb's forecast came true and his routing was 100%. We have seen +10 knots wind
speeds for the first time since we left Las Palmas. We had California Blue up to
10.7 knots in speed surfing down waves in 12.5 knots of wind. We are
impressed and are racking up the miles today. Our average speed today is
probably 7 knots.
At the time of this writing 16:00 UTC we have
sailed almost 500 miles since we left Las Palmas and have about 2200 to go - but
who's counting?
So today has been all about getting the most out of
the wind. If the wind speeds continue like this thru the night we could be
looking at a 160 nm in 24 hrs! That would make us very happy
indeed.
However, there was also cleaning to be
done (see the picture of the dishes - poor galley slave) and preparing for
tonight's dinner - which by the way is Bratwurst Potato Surprise with fresh
crisp green salad as a starter. Think we will do a recipe book after this
adventure - NOT! The boys managed to squeeze in some more homework when they
weren't sleeping. Must be all the fresh air!
No VHF chatter today. Haven't heard a word. We must
be out of range from most boats. We passed one sailboat to starboard around
14:00 UTC. Otherwise we are by ourselves.
Thanks to everyone for sending us emails. It's nice
to hear from you and receive your well wishes - thank you. And thanks Rudy for
the Lakers results. Don't slack off again and forget to send them :) If
you haven't emailed us yet please do so (text only and no attachments) the email
address is calblue {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com
More fun and excitement to report
tomorrow.
The crew of California Blue
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