|
|
November 11th, Friday - Atlantic Ocean, 400
miles east of the Bahamas
|
11:30am Friday morning
- After departing Hampton, Virginia on Monday at noon,
we put 52 hours on the engines within the first 72 hours
of the race. Thursday afternoon the winds finally
started filling in and we have not had to listen to
those noisy but essential beasts since 10:30 am on
Thursday. The whole fleet was disappointed with
the light conditions, especially Rex Conn on his 50 foot
Trimaran "Alacrity." He had been hoping to set the
record for the passage and probably would have if the
wind gods had cooperated. As much as we hate
running the engines, our goal is to make it to Tortola,
and we decided to use them liberally to meet that end.
We carry 200 gallons of fuel so we were not worried
about conserving it. Rex, on the other hand, had a
mere 35 gallons of fuel on board! Amazing.
As of our last update, he had put half as many hours on
his engines and was behind us. That is not likely
to last for long!
Aside from the lack of
wind, our passage to Tortola has gone very well.
The girls have not had any appreciable trouble with
seasickness, probably thanks to the light wind
conditions, and even slept through soundly while we were
sailing along at 10 knots for most of Thursday night.
We got a couple of days of school in while we were
motoring but they are watching a movie now while the
rest of the crew debates putting up the spinnaker.
We hooked two yellowfin tuna yesterday afternoon, the
first fish we have ever caught on Zia. That was a
thrill and we will post some photos once we get better
internet access. Gregg and Lew have been
exceptional crew. We are all sleeping and eating
well.
You can follow our progress, with daily
position updates on the
www.carib1500.com
web site. We have regularly scheduled radio
check-ins at 7:30am Atlantic Standard Time (one hour
ahead of EST) and 7:30pm in which we will all
state our positions. These will be relayed back to
the webmaster each evening and he will update the site
in the morning.
The forecast continues to be favorable, and we are
hoping to sail the entire rest of the way. We have
about 625 miles to go, and are about half way there.
Thanks for the emails and good wishes. We miss you
but are enjoying the big adventure so far.
Much love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
Next entry
>>>>>>>
Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
|
|
