This is a copy of his email after crossing the Atlantic (Bermuda to the Azores)
Hello Oriental et al,
Greetings from Europe, well from the European Union, well the Azores are in the European Union as the are part of Portugal. And they are absolutely BEAUTIFUL......
So ins and outs of the trip.
left Bermuda (St George) 5/8/08 1500 UTC
arrived Azores (Horta) 28/8/08 1315 UTC
Total time 22 days 22 hours 15 mins
Total distance 2133 nmi
Ave 24 run 93 nmi
Greatest distance in 24 hrs 132nmi
Least distance in 24 hrs 36nmi
When I left Bermuda there was a low pressure system approaching from the North that had rain and strong winds associated with it, so I went due east for the first 2 or so days then headed north. The plan was to skirt the edge of the low to catch the some winds (and hopefully not the rain etc), without going so far as to get caught in the Azores high (I saved that for later). This strategy worked pretty well for the first 10 - 15 days as I gradually put more and more Easting into the heading as I approached N37-38 then following the great circle route to Flores (Azores most NW island).
Eavesdropping on Herb´s weather prognostications for others (Southbound 2 SW radio broadcasts) I heard that there were some more low fronts coming off of Newfoundland so I stayed in this Latitude (N37-38) rather than heading a degree or two more north and took a compromised GC route / rhumb line from there. In general this worked ok, missing most of the low fronts, getting there tails with a bit of weather here and there, but also in this leg I was increasingly getting days when there was bugger all wind (BTW this is an Australian Meteorological term).
This lack of wind was exacerbated by the movement of the Azores high to pretty much follow me for the last 5 days.... in these last five days I covered a grand total of 240 ish nmi, with the shortest being 36nmi, and then for the last 4 hours of my approach to Horta there was a stiff wind that saw me down to 3 reefs in the main and the yankee up. Obviously from this you can tell that I didn´t use the motor until I was withing hailing distance of the Horta breakwater, certainly the light airs are troublesome when combined with a swell that just knocks the wind out of the sails and sends everything flapping, at times I did drop the sails and just bob around.
Some fun things ...
Bermuda was lovely... but expensive. The Cup Match Bermuda (annual 2 day cricket match) was lots of fun, and the place was generally lovely and very welcoming.
Occasionally I would listen to the BBC world service, where I did catch Australia winning gold at the Olympics..... I couldn´t but sing a version of the Australian national anthem
to the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme song that I heard on the radio once years ago ....... it got stuck in my head, at one stage I sung it out loud, it was really strange hearing my voice after a week or two of no conversation.
The colour of the Atlantic out there is just something to behold, I thought I knew what the colour blue was... but now it has be redefined.
The day before I landed at Horta I was bobbing around at sunrise and I noticed this large ´thing´ floating about 500m away (about 1/3 mile for the Americans in the house :-)). A weary brain thought, shipping container..? it seamed about the right size ... what the... and after about 5 minutes it moved... and it turned out to be a whale just hanging out, and then it´s buddy surfaced and they headed off N....
anyhow that is more than enough to bore you all to tears so I will sign off for now.
xo
J
