Monday, January 24, 2011

Atlantic crossing - Day 7 and 8 - 2130 nm to go - The World Tour

Rain is gone. Although it took around 15 hours to get rid of. Fantastic how different the world can appear in different lights. We are now definitely in the tropics, with a position of N 19.20° W 24.55°, and finally have those warm nights arrived, making the watches much easier to go through. I'm thinking by the way of having a swim in the deep blue sea very soon as the heat is quite unbearable at times. Alex tells me there might be sharks and tries to scare me but I don't intend letting either him or the movie "The Reef" stand in between me and my mid Atlantic dive, for there can't be sharks in the middle of the deep Atlantic ocean, can there? And if there is, how great would the risk be to have a hungry one just around our boat when I dive in? The Reef was by the way a good movie, thanks for the tips whoever that was of our dear readers suggesting us to see it. A bit frustrating though to watch people taking such stupid decisions like the ones taken in the movie.

No flying fishes here yet as far as I am concerned, only a very strange fish swimming along with us next to the hull of our boat, just like a dog or some other type of pet following it's owner. Please let me know if anyone can identify this weird animal. Is it eatable?

We have now been out here for seven days and only two ships have we met. Definitely thought there would be a bit more traffic around here, although we do not mind the loneliness at all. Feels good to have the ocean all to ourselves. Definitely better for the tan as well, as we're able to be naked as much as we want to without curious eyes watching. Speaking of tan, the tone of my skin is slowly turning into something reminiscent of raisins, I might look like an old, dry grapefruit when we're done with this passage although everything is better than the pale white winter look I was sporting earlier.

Although we were earlier convinced that we had found those tradewinds, they quickly died out on us after a few days. It's been some slow and frustrating last 24 hours here with ultra light winds and terribly uncomfortable rolling seas. I can't believe I once was dreaming of dead calm mid Atlantic days, they are the worst to ever have to encounter. Especially when we've decided to not make a stop in Cape Verde to refuel. Will the fuel last all the way to the West Indies is the question of the day. Or no, that is actually not a question any longer, it just has to last as we do not have other options any longer. We're now heading further down SW to catch up with the established trades which we've found on the grib-files and we're having some 300 nm to go before we can turn completely to the West.

I can by the way see that we have +200 new friend requests on Facebook, unfortunately we can't accept them from here so bare with us for two more weeks, will you. Also we're sorry that we can't answer much emails and comments from the sea, will take care of it all when we're back on normal Wifi connection again.

/Taru -