St Martin to Bermuda – Day 5

Spent all day Thursday goose winged under reefed main and genoa doing a reasonable average of around 8k, making good the deficit of the previous two days. Started picking up Bermuda Hbr radio on VHF over 200M out. (supposed to be one of the most powerful in the world - we did some trig and figured the radio mast would have to be over 7 miles high to achieve line of sight, so guess its sheer power?)  They were issuing a severe weather warning for the Bermuda area predicting gale force winds of 30-35k with storm force gusts to 50k, heavy rain, thunder, locusts the lot!  We called them on SSB to ask whether it would be safe to approach and enter the Hbr on Friday, and after considering our length and draft told us it should be fine. So no heaving too! Looks like the worst may have passed ahead of us.

Made good progress all day, so decided to get rid of the main and sail through the night on reefed and poled out genoa just in case the gales arrived. We never experienced anything more than 33k and had a very rolly but stress free night.

Now have about 18M to go and expect to arrive about 12.00, which is 13.00 Bermuda time due to daylight savings.

Date and time: 6th May 2016; 13.00 GMT

Distance:   187 M

Position: N32:07:5 W064:30:6