Going fast

11 March 2017

After some delay at the end of our time in Cape Verde we are on our way to our next destination, the Caribbean, 2100 nautical miles to the west. With a ship full of guest crew, stores, gasoil and water we left Mindelo behind and set sail for the crossing. From Porto Grande we sailed southwest, between São Vicente and Santo Antão. From last time we remembered that we should avoid staying to close to Santo Antão because the island is so high there is a big area with no wind, so after 15 miles we went south, but unfortunately this was still too quick. The speed dropped down to 2,5 knots, far below the speed we should have. But luckily this did not take too long and the speed picked up, 6, 7, 8, 9 knots… Today we did an average of over 9 knots and the forecast predicts favourable winds for the next 24 hours, so we will be able to keep this speed. It’s always nice to make some miles at the beginning of the crossing to get some more ‘air’ in the schedule for the last part of the trip. Because we expect a more easterly wind when we get closer to our destination we are now steering a bit more south. This way we hope that we have a bigger angle with the wind as we don’t go that fast with the wind in our back. We’ll see; for now we are all enjoying ourselves!