Setting the course

25 January 2016

Update by Alice Teekman:
“While I’m writing this, it is still dark, I just woke up and the ship is gently sailing on the ocean. It is so quiet that it hardly seems we are making progress, but when I check we are doing 7 knots. The wind is nice, about 7 Bft. 
Yesterday evening around 11PM we set the course, a huge square sail of about 150 m2. It a lot of work to set it and it kept our watch (the white one) busy. But we managed and we sailed into the night with the full moon lighting the way. 
Captain Maarten shows us Orion, Castor and Pollux, the Pleiades and many more. And he tells fantastic stories about Greek gods and goddesses. In a while, when the moon has set, we will see even more stars and we will hear more stories. 
We are still sailing south, in the afternoon we plan to head a bit more west. The wind has changed from southeast to northeast and in about 6 hours we will be south enough to have the wind with us for the rest of the trip. 
We are not even 48 hours at sea but it already feels much longer. Life is simple, you are on watch, you eat (delicious), you sleep, read, talk, stare, etc. but it never gets boring. 
It is surprising to me that there are no sea birds at all. They say it is normal in this part of the Atlantic. When we get closer to the Caribbean we hope to see more. It is going to be another perfect day at sea and we have still three weeks to go!
PS: Just as I was trying to send this message we see the spray of a whale at the horizon. We think it’s a humpback whale, but it is too far away to be sure.”