Bermuda to Azores, Day 5: The “comfortable” route
Last night, Anett and I were in the cockpit getting rocked by ever-confused waves and asking ourselves “Why is it like this?”
We are so far offshore, why are the weather systems sending us waves from all directions and keeping them so close together?
We didn’t find answers in the weather forecast, so I went to bed as confused as the sea.
I only managed to fall asleep when I realized that the motion of the boat was only partly at fault for my sleep depravation. Turns out that in these seas, noise is a huge factor too.
Because we surf and smash and the waves come crashing against our hull, it is a lot louder in our cabin than I realized.
So I popped a couple of earplugs in my ears and managed to get some sleep until it was time for me to get up and go on watch duty.
Between 5:00 AM and 8:00 AM our time (we are still on Bermuda time onboard) is when we typically receive weather updates from our weather routing gods.
One of them is Jen (who we’ve talked about already on our way to Bermuda), whose emails are always so spot on that we wonder if on top of being a weather and climate expert, she has some psychic abilities too.
No matter what it contains, receiving an email from Jen is *always* good news.
And this morning, Jen’s email came with answers to the questions we asked ourselves, but didn’t ask her directly, confirming our belief that she indeed has psychic powers.
In Jen’s email, we learned that we are currently sailing, “in a very swirly mess of Gulf Stream current,” which makes the waves the washing machine that they are.
We also learned that those currents and sea conditions should remain until 45 degrees west, which means we will be sailing in the washing machine for another three days.
The silver lining is that we are keeping Polar Seal south enough that the winds are gentle, making the sea state a lot more “comfortable” for us to sail in than if we were sailing a couple more degrees north.
Besides, we are expecting a cold front to blow behind us and above our position on Sunday and Monday, so our job right now is to get Polar Seal positioned to avoid/make the most out of the front.
So we are staying down at 37 degrees north. We are still rolling and smashing, but it is a lot easier than what we had two days ago.
We kept our main sail on port and our poled out jib on starboard, and we are currently rocking all 6-7 knots in 15-20 knots of true wind.
For now, we are maintaining our due-east course until the front has passed, by which time we will probably revisit our heading and turn north.
Until then, the crew is doing really well and Anett is LOVING her time onboard with us ;-)
One last question: Is anyone a Tour de France fan? If so, please send updates! News of the crash on the first day reached us even in the middle of the ocean, but that's all we know so far.
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Playlist of the day: "How Bizarre" by OMC