Searching for wind

14 May 2018

A new group of trainees arrived in Bermuda. With these 20 new members on board, we were ready to go this morning! But first, we had to clear customs. After Jan went back and forth from the ship to customs with many forms and lists, a man from customs arrived with more forms and a stamp. Within half an hour we had our clearance and were ready to go! That was what we thought. However, we had to wait for Bermuda Radio, who wanted to doublecheck that we could leave port without a pilot. As soon as that was verified, we could sail away.
Naturally, we wanted to sail out of the harbour in a great fashion, so we prepared some sails. It seemed like it was a great wind for our impressive square foresail. And it was, but just a few minutes before we wanted to leave, the wind shifted 90 degrees! We altered our plans and quickly prepared our other sails.
Once we left the quay we hoisted the first sails and turned off the engine. We sailed through the Town Cut to the open water. Once outside we had to stay within the limits of the buoys, before we could bear away and hoist the square foresail we had already prepared. A great start of our voyage towards the Azores. However, the wind became less and less, and at the end of the afternoon we had to start the engine. We sail a northerly course, and we are looking for wind. Between Bermuda and the Azores there is basically one large high-pressure area, and we want to find the northside of this area to profit from the westerly winds.