Bermuda to Azores  – Day 4

Once the weather cleared mid morning yesterday, it was a pretty quick sail all day in overcast but pleasant conditions. Got a bit of sun late afternoon.

As predicted the wind started to shift from SW to W late evening. E, We gybed onto port just after 1am. Been sailing goosed on port gybe since, though breeze starting to die. The compensation being clear and sunny skys.

Got a bit of a shock with the change in gribs yesterday morning when they started to show a nasty low crossing our path around Saturday, so we’ve changed strategies and will head ESE from tomorrow morning to try and keep away from the worst of it. The problem is there is a small high supposed to form just to the south of us latter today/tomorrow, hence the dying breeze today. We will skirt the north side to stay in W’ly winds, before heading ESE for a day. Expecting very light winds and very slow progress during this phase. This course will take us temporarily well south of the Azores, so it likely means a stop there as we swing back up.

Have been seeing strange “animals” floating in the water all the way from Bermuda. At first I thought it was plastic, but then figured it was a dorsal fin about 4” long with pink spines and a pink outer edge around the transparent fin. Eventually we got some photos, and it seems it could be some kind of jelly fish – really weird as the “mouth” (what we thought was the dorsal) is several inches above the surface like a sail.

Date and time: 17th May 2016; 09.15 GMT

Position: N36:05:7 W055:23:8

24 hr distance: 184M