In 2025 we continue our journey west.
| Distance sailed | 615.7 NM | (99.9%) |
|---|---|---|
| Distance motored | 0.7 NM | (0.1%) |
| Total | 616.4 NM | |
| Travel days | 5 | (100%) |
| Harbour days | 0 | (0%) |
| Storm days | 0 | (0%) |
After celebrating new year it was time to head west. So in the morning we visited the immigration and harbour police and cleared ourselves out of the country. After that we got a bunch of freshies from the market and prepared the boat for sea.
We’ve spent today sailing in quite turbulent conditions. At night, the curving winds drove us to the calm batch in the lee of Santo Antão. Off watch was roused, and we gybed to get out of there. Then we were back in the acceleration zone, winds gusting up to 33kt and pushing us along. The night was quite fun, fast, downwind sailing. There are lots of shooting stars, and possibly the first glimpse of the Southern Cross.
Seems we have finally reached the trade winds without any interference. Base at 15 gusting to 20 from a stable direction. We are now flying double headsails as the occasional 25 kn gust throws the windvane completely off course when under Parasailor. With double headsail we are about 3 days slower than we would be with Parasailor, but I’ll change that any day for more relaxed watches. We both had really good sleep on our off watches, so now for dinner time we actually have some time to hang out.
Today was the second day in row when we haven’t needed to touch a thing since switching to the double headsail setup. Winds have been blowing quite steadily from the northeast, and the boat sails itself.
The topic on everyones’ lips is the calm that is expected to develop between us and Barbados. Sya ahead of us warned about it, Wenda behind us is for now steering towards the southerly route evaluating along the way if that is necessary. The two Swedish boats that we had a discussion over the VHF with are now doing a “banana curve” towards Barbados to avoid the calm.
Today is another of those easy days offshore: we’re trucking along at a quite steady 5kt without having to do anything else than maintain a lookout. At night, we passed the duo of Swedish boats (Sawubona and Lucky Winny) again and had a short VHF conversation. This time, we could see them in the horizon, bringing the “boats seen” count to four so far.
