The Trade Winds

We finally managed to find something approaching the trade winds. It has not been easy: We had to sail further south, and our current position is 17 29` N, 028 29` W. We estimate that by the end of the passage, we will have probably sailed an extra 200 miles. The good thing is we are now doing 6 to 7 knots in 15 Kt winds, with our main and jib with a pole – and sometimes, when the wave diminishes we fly our spinnaker.

We are doing 270, straight for St. Lucia. The temperature has gone up significantly! The last weather forecast shows a low 400 to 600 miles ahead but it is further north and moving northeast. Winds there are supposed to hit 40 kts, so we are keen to avoid the low. We check the weatherfax from Boston and the ARC forecast on a daily basis.

One nice thing about the trade winds is the fish. There are plenty. Every evening we see flying fish and some of them land on deck. They are supposed to be delicious, but we haven’t tried those yet. A couple of nights ago, it was like an invasion: Lots of them hit the boat; you could hear the bangs when they hit the bimini top, or the deck. The whole boat smelled of fish and in the morning I counted twelve dead fish on board including one that somehow managed to get inside the boat through a small hatch. It landed inside the storage cabin, between our fruit and vegetables.

We did some fishing as well, and we managed to catch a 2 Kg dorada. It fought for its life when we brought it on board. It was almost lunchtime, and we cooked it with onions, garlic and some rosemary in the oven and then ate it with a side salad!

Life couldn’t be better.

(Propagation is really bad these days, and I can’t get more than 200 chars per minute on the SSB. Because of that I can’t send you the nice picture of the Dorada. As soon as I get decent speeds I will send the picture.)