12DAY WELCOME BACK TRADE WINDS!

​We are flying!...Its amazing how fast the Sea can change,,,one day it is slow,,lazy and hardly moving,...and other day there are mountains of water all around trying to catch us. Finally we got wind and of course big waves too.  Now its blowing 20 knots with the gust reaching 25 knots and Grain de Sable is surfing in all speed towards Suriname. Life on board became less comfortable and cooking is like an art...but  we are so happy because miles on Gps are decreasing  fast and less and less is left.  And like always when the half way is done everyone of us starts counting miles and planning day of arrival.  But still we have more than 700 miles to sail.....
To our everyday life on board came routine .. First wait till all are awake and than a midday beer...than shower time with a sea water from bucket.. checking fish pipe if we catch anything...than making lunch of fish or other ..eating..doing some small works( like making mosquito nets on each hatch of boat)...coffee..many talks in cockpit...and many many hours of observing the sea...
And we are busy all day:)...just like that!
Now with the big waves all things we do requires more effort and time because boat is rolling a lot and inside sometimes you feel like in washing machine.  And when you cook you dream to have 2 extra hands. But we manage all. And so with waves or without we continue eating hot meals, baking bread, making sweet cakes or jams from old fruits.  Ok me personally i prefer 15 knots and slower but more relax passage, but in such a long leg you must be really really lucky to have so constant winds all trip.

Our wind wane continue helping us to steer like a real fourth crew member- working hours and hours without a break. It took time to understand how to make it work good and still now there are things we don,t understand. Most of the time it steers perfectly but with a bigger seas sometimes it needs constant attention.  Because of some big waves a lot of time it goes out of course and is not able to recuperate it. Than we need to help it with a main wheel and it come back to steer to course again. So our watch keeping's now are more attach to the cockpit because we need to be ready to take a wheel when wind wane fails..  But its all Ok ..At least we don't need to steer all time and for sure with the time we will discover all secrets.  Our boat  has hydraulic steering so the  system of installation of wind vane is quite complicated. We have secondary rudder installed and wind pilot is steering independently from the main rudder which must be blocked at the center and left untouched. So we are steering with auxiliary rudder which is smaller and so needs more time to turn the boat.

Nevertheless we are content to have this wind vane and appreciate its help more than you can imagine!!!!!


737 NM LEFT