Atlantic Crossing June 2020 Part One.

Friday 29 May 2020 (Day 1):

We all chipped in and managed to do - almost - all the work on my “To Do List”. Serena and I were up at 06:00 and she cooked more meals, while I prepared New Dawn for setting sails. Unfortunately the generator continues to be a problem and it will not start unless Alex manually connects a wire between the “reset” switch and the fuel pump. Very annoying.

We had agreed to depart at 10:00 and so we did. I had cleared out of St Martin yesterday and also received permission from the Anguilla’s chief police, so we were allowed to enter its waters before rounding the NE tip of the island. All these forms and emails went smoothly and efficiently.

As soon as we were free of St Martin’s land masses, we were back in the trade wind with 9-15 kn east wind, and the swell increased to about 1.5 m. Once past the NE tip of Anguilla the course was changed to further northerly and the sheets could be eased a bit as we had a true wind angle at 90° on SB and the boat speed was 7.2-8.2 kn, with only a slight heeling of the boat.

The sky is almost clear of clouds and the water temperature about 29°. The last couple of days, in Marigot Bay, was magnificent with the water flat and crystal clear. Serena had increased her swimming from her daily 2.000 meters to 3.000 meters and yesterday she swam 4.000 meters, as the water was so pleasant.

As can be seen from the earlier photos, the freezer, and boat in general, is fully provisioned and we have prepared about 30 dinners for the three of us, ready to be warmed up and we should be fine for at least a month. This is needed as we are not certain where we will be allowed to enter harbors on the way, so a good provisioning was done to be on the safe side.

Alex like to use the SSB radio and is the OCC net Controller each Monday and Friday. As this radio is powerful, it interferes with the instruments and has in the past broken some of these instruments and the autopilot goes bananas and can’t steer the boat when we speaks on the radio. Thus, one of us has to hand steer when we use the radio. This evening we learned that Horta is considering relaxing their lockdown as of 1 June and apparently we all have to be tested for the Corona-virus and wait 48 hours for the result, before being allowed ashore. If correct that is good news and we would be able to visit the island and perhaps the other islands. But I have my doubts if this is correct, as I believe it is the usual social media rumors and people that think they know everything. Time will tell.

Saturday 30 May 2020 (Day 2).

The wind became variable during the night watch of Alex and we slowed down a lot. By the start of my watch, the wind had again stabilized and was a steady 8-10 kn. We noticed thunder and squalls to our NW, but nothing too close to worry about.

Early morning I heard the fresh water pump coming on at regular intervals. I checked all the water taps and none of them were leaking. When Alex arrived at 06:00 for his watch, we checked the engine room and found there was a leak in the expansion tank, as it had started to rust. It was changed in 2013 in Las Palmas, Grand Canaries. This was bad news. We did a lot of checking and trying to repair it, but we ended up with a bigger problem as the pressure became too high and the boiler cracked, so we now have no running and no hot water. We all discussed to either return to St Martin or continue and live without running water. We agreed to continue and only use the manual pump at the kitchen sink. I am no faced with having to replace the boiler and expansion tank somewhere along the route - likely in South France, or perhaps in Gibraltar. More work….. But Alex managed to temporary find a fix, so we can use the water pump for short times, as long as we switch it off after use. Not ideal, but workable. But no hot water.

Otherwise the day is very pleasant with the sun filtered by some thin clouds and the wind steady at 8 kn from the East. We are close hauled on SB tack and the swell is big, but steady, meaning the boat’s movements are pleasant. The sea is a beautiful dark blue colour, but again we see big patches of Sargasso Sea Weed. This weed is a real pain as it gets caught in the fishing gear, so we have to clean the lure several times a day. But, so far, we have caught nothing else than the weed.

As for the weather and route planning, we are trying the PredictWind (PW) routing system, which I have some reservations on, but will give it the benefit of the doubt for a while. On the plotter I have marked the Rhum line (direst and shortest routs to Horta), the previous routes I did with success and the PredictWind routes. Comparing these routes, we are several hundred NM W of the Rhum line, and are between my usual route and the PW routes. I still have my doubts about the usefulness of the PW system. As mentioned earlier the weather pattern in the North Atlantic is strange at the moment and it is not easy to see clearly how we can avoid the many patches of light winds ahead of us for the coming 2.100+ NM.

Sunday 31 May 2020 (Day 3).

The night was relatively calm and enjoyable, although we had a few squalls, one of which happened on my watch at 05:00 and it was a big one stretching 9 NM across and dumping a huge amount of rain and a lot of lightning. On the radar it looked rough, so I reefed the sails and slowed the boat to two kn, allowing the system to pass in front of us at 2.5 NM distance. Once it had passed it slowly disintegrated, so I could unfurl the sails and we were back on track by the time of the watch of Alex at 06:00.

The swell is only 1.5 m and has a long timing between them, which is nice. The wind is back to E with 9 kn. After that the sailing conditions became wonderful, with hardly any clouds, no waves and we had a the west going current. That gave us a SOG of 6.5-7.0 kn and the boat’s motions very pleasant. We have covered 310 NM during he last 48 h and considering the variable wind we have had and being closed hauled (as close to the wind as possible +- 40° to the apparent wind) and at times unfavourable current, this is an acceptable performance.

Thus, life on board is pleasant at the moment and we are enjoying it. The watch system seems to work well with three hours watches during dark and four hours during the day light. This gives us six hours off at night and seven to eight hours during the day and usually will allow us to catch up on sleep. Another couple of days will tell me if this system is optimal for each of us, otherwise I will change the system. As for the cooking we each has a kitchen duty for dinner each three days. But Serena has cooked many meals and for the first 3-4 days she has prepared the fresh meals and has done the wast majority of the kitchen duty, so far.

Alex is still keen on the SSB radio Net and spend close to an hour each evening on the OCC cruisers Net mainly set up for those boats that are crossing the Atlantic from West to East. It is interesting to hear the other boats experience and conditions that they are sailing under. But as I mentioned above, when we uses the HF radio, we have to switch off all the instruments and hand steer using only the compass. I have seen in the past that instruments like plotters, electronic compass, autopilot computers, don’t accept many of the high frequencies waves, especially over 8K kH and the instruments gets damaged.

Monday 1 June 2020 (Day 4).

So far the sailing has been pleasant, albeit much slower than my other crossings and we expect little wind the coming days. The wind dropped already at midday to only 6 kn and the direction is from the south, which is a pain as the boat speed slowed even more and we start to roll more. But it is still nice and warm as the sun is right above us and is very strong with a high UV factor. But we have, at present, a favourable 0.7 kn current, which is positive. The tracking seems to work now that my PC settings was changed.

As to the fishing, the only thing we have caught is the Sargresso Weed that gets tangled in the fishing hook all the time. An absolute pain. I don’t understand that we see this large amount of the weed here as it used to be located around the Bermuda triangle where there is a huge amount of it. But now it is present in the Caribbean and even here way SE of Bermuda. Not nice.

As to the wildlife, I have seen a few large “men-of-war” (kind of floating and sailing Jelly Fish), but otherwise nothing seen in the sea. But we have many brown Bogies (?) that are gracefully gliding over the waves with their wing tips almost touching the water. At times they try to land on New Dawn’s top of the mast, but so far they have not succeeded, or I have not seen it when it was dark. Otherwise they seem to follow us and land on the water close to us and while landing they do a bit of water skiing.

This afternoon, as we only sailed two kn, I rigged a large fender on a line and dragged it aft of the boat, so Serena and I could take turns to go for a swim in the beautiful dark blue and clean sea. Well swim it was not really, as even with two kn boat speed we had to hold on to the rope, as we can’t swim that fast. It was very refreshing. A strange feeling to be in the water with a depth of 5.000-6.000 meter.

Tuesday 2 June 2020 (Day 5).

Hardly any wind most of yesterday, but today at 02:00 we received 20 kn wind from the south and the boat speed was up to 9 kn. But by 05:00 the wind dropped to 9 kn and the boat speed to 4.7-5.6 kn. Most of the day we had variable winds and the same annoying swell and waves, making us rock and roll and making life unpleasant, at times. We also had squalls bringing rain and thunder as well as strong winds adding to an uncomfortable day.

Wednesday 3 June 2020 (Day 6).

It is now clear to me that this crossing will not make it to the record breaking books, as we are well below my usual average of mileage per day (usually 154-180 NM/day) and we are unlikely to reach Horta in the planned 14 days, unless the weather conditions will become more favourable to us. I think we will be lucky if we can make it in 19 days.

On the OCC Net we hear that some of the boats have arrived and reports that they had to anchor inside the harbour and a few were allowed into the quarantine parts of the marina if they had repairs to do. But none are allowed to leave their boats and go ashore. So what we heard the other day, about the testing and going ashore after 48 h, was false rumors. If Horta don’t change this and open up to let us ashore, I start to wonder if it is really worth to stop there, unless we need fuel, provision, repairs and a rest? We have probably had enough of Lockdown and quarantine by now. But just in case, I have started to develop different plans like for example:

1. Stop in Horta or another Azores island, if they open up.

2. Bypass the Azores and head for the Madeira Islands, or more likely Gibraltar, depending on the wind.

3. Head for the Med and stop on the way where needed, or go straight to the Balearic islands, or the Hyeres Islands, before the golf of St Tropez.

But it would be a pity if we can’t visit the Azores Islands, as they are very nice and has a friendly population.

Later in the day, the waves became too big for comfort. So in the end we tacked again back to an easterly course. As Nicolas told in his email, there is a nasty system further north which we should avoid. This morning Alex received an email from the US Coast Guard telling that a boat had capsized and another boat was taking water. They are located in the nasty system I mentioned above and are about 400 NM north of us. Alex emailed the boats we know are in the area or on their way there, asking them to keep an eye out for these two boats. As they are located way too far north for us, we can’t do more for them and we are not really interested in entering into this difficult weather patter. A few weeks ago another boat dis-masted closer to the Azores. As I mentioned earlier I find the weather in the North Atlantic chaotic and unusual at this time of the year.

Later I reefed both sails and the boat’s motion became acceptable, but we had a few waves running over the decks. Unfortunately, as the waves come over the deck, Alex’s cabin got wet as he leaves his windows open and he is currently washing and drying his equipment like charger, Bose headphones, etc.. An unpleasant experience and hopefully a lesson learned.

On the other hand the temperature is pleasant during the day, but it is cooler during night and more squally, rainy and we see a lot of lightning. So far we have covered 600 NM (straight line) and depending on how much tacking we will have to do, we should have 1.600 NM to Horta (straight line).

Thursday 4 June 2020 (Day 7).

The weather continues to play games with us and the little wind we have had were usually on the nose. I had to wake up Volvo yesterday and we have been motoring a lot since. Usually I don’t favour using the motor except for manoeuvring in marinas and for anchoring, but as the weather is stormy further north, we are forced to stay south and only head north once the wind become more favourable. But that require us to motor through large bands of windless. Unfortunately this morning’s forecast sees little improvement for the coming days and once we should start to head north the wind is likely to be back on the nose. What a dilemma.

We have now covered 673 NM (straight line) and have 1.512 NM to Horta and Gibraltar is 2.580 NM away. Only a few squalls last night and little rain. As I write this, we have an almost clear sky, but to our north I can see loads of troubled clouds. Alex was too tired last night to participate in the net, so we don’t have an update from the boats that were in trouble yesterday, nor if Horta has relaxed their lockdown. He will try tonight and at least Friday he will be the Net Controller, so we can get an update.

The swell is now over 2 meter and comes from the north, which continues to roll us and it is unpleasant. Yesterday, when a big wave hit us and I was opening the cockpit window, I banged my left side against the entrance frame and I might have fractured my ribs, which is painful. It is the same pain I have had on two earlier Atlantic crossing and I know there is nothing one can do, except for taking Paracetamol and wait a few months for the pain to subside.

We have currently six Brown Boogies elegantly gliding over the water, close to us. These birds stay way out at sea for most of the year and sleep on the water surface. Only at mating time do they go to shore, usually a rock somewhere for their annual mating party. Then when the party is over they return to the sea and start their nomadic life again.

Still the only thing we have caught on the fishing line is the Sargasso Weed, which Serena has baptized “Tofu” as it resembles that.

The temperature is dropping and the sea is now 27° C, or 2° lower than in St Martin. The nights are getting cooler and we start to wear long pants and light jumpers, or a fleece. I have now installed my Duvet and at night I close the side windows in my aft cabin, to avoid the draft.

Saturday 6 June 2020 (Day 9).

Almost no wind yesterday and here at 02:30 we have no wind, so there is not much to write about. One bad news was that yesterday one of the hydraulic hoses for the furling system blew up. This is very bad news and will require us to furl and unfurl the sails manually, which is hard work as the gearing on the furler are low and need a lot of turns for these big sails. I am just back from the front deck where I furled in the 86 m2 Genoa. I emailed Horta Marina, asking if they know of a company that can make us new hydraulic hoses and check the system. I am sure there will be companies in Horta that can do that, and will they have the correct fittings?

It was a beautiful morning with first the sunrise followed by the full moon setting, both with a wonderful light show reflecting in the clouds on each side of us.

The wind finally appeared during the watch of Alex, but soon after it disappeared. After Serena’s watch at 06:00 the wind came back with 10 kn and we had again a good sailing speed. Hardly any clouds over us, but plenty clouds around us, at a distance.

The Jungle Greenhouse is still working well and the plant has new leaves and roots. Serena aim to take the plant home as a Caribbean souvenir.

A positive note is that I believe I found the fault of the generator and why it did not start, as I found a 50 A fuse that was burned and located below the navigation table. It was the “Alt. Generator/start battery” fuse. Amazing that none of the two mechanics that worked on boar had not thought of checking that fuse and they did not mention the possibility that a fuse might be the problem. So I waster some money and time. I tested it this morning after changing the fuse and it started right away, so I could run the water maker and fill up the water tank. At least this was good news.

It is now 11:30 and the wind comes and goes all the time and several squalls have passed over us dumping a lot of rain, so we received several free freshwater boat washes.

During the afternoon we finally got an almost steady wind from the ESE of between 5-12 kn and as the swell and waves have diminished, the sailing conditions have improved and became pleasant.

This evening the full moon raise gave us a spectacular show with a wonderful red light reflecting in the clouds and in the sea. I hope my video clips of this show can be used in my next video for the Crossing. The water temperature continues to drop and is now 24.5° representing a drop of 4.5° since Marigot Bay and the air temperature drops in a similar fashion and it is getting cooler each day. The daylight are getting longer each day and is now close to 15 hours, whereas around Equator the days and nights are each about 12 hours like from 06:00-18:00.

Sunday 7 June 2020 (day 10).

Last night Neptune spoiled us with a southeasterly wind of 10 kn, small waves, clear sky and a steady acceptable speed. The boat movements were ideal, although we are close hauled, and we could have more sleep that the previous days. As far as I can see from the GRIP files, the weather forecast looks good for the coming couple of days, which is as far in the future I count on, as after three days the forecast becomes uncertain. But we might face wind on the nose as we approach Horta. But this can and will change each day in the current chaotic Atlantic weather pattern.

There are three high and a few low pressure systems to our north and we should avoid them as either there is too little (high) or too much (low) wind in them. The two low systems coming across has winds of 20-30 kn which we must avoid because of not having the hydraulic furling system working. The effects from the first low seems to come already tomorrow and if it remain in its position in tomorrow morning’s forecast, I plan on reefing the sails before we reach that area. We just can’t carry full sails at those wind speed.

It is now 07:25 and we have a splendid weather with sunshine, no clouds over us as the clouds politely stay well away to the east. The wind remains at 10 kn from southeast, which gives a good angle of about 60° apparent and a boat speed of 6.4-7 kn. We still have 1.182 NM to Horta and have sailed, so far, 1.022 NM since St Martin - both in straight lines. Thus, we are - in theory - nearly half way?

Still no fish, but plenty of weed on the hock and also a lot of the Man-of-war sailing jelly fish. I am trying to get photos of these sailing Jelly Ships, but it is difficult to catch them.

Horta Marina answered my email about the work we need to get done and they will send me a list of likely contractors that we hope can repair the various things that have broken. I cross my fingers.

Monday 8 June 2020 (Day 11).

As the saying goes “Sailing is 10% pleasure and 90% hassle”. This might be right and if so, the last few days have been in the 10% bracket. We have a south to east wind of 8-17 kn and only small waves and swell, almost full blue sky, sunny most of the time and the boat movements ideal and very pleasant. We sleep better than on the first parts of the crossing, cooking become easier to handle and the boat heeling is at an acceptable angle. Thus, life on board is as perfect as it can get on an Atlantic ocean crossing going west to east. OK the Trade Wind passages heading west might be better, but this time we have to sail east.

There are now more and more of the Man-of-war sailing Jelly Fish. They all seems to have their “sail” at a 90° angle to the wind. They sail rather steady, but capsize easy in our wake, but rights themselves quickly and continue to sail in the same direction. Guess they are all heading to the same place or at least the same direction, wheresoever that can be? They come in all sizes of XS, S, M, L, XL and XXL. The XL are about 10 cm long and the sail about 6 cm high. Funny things.

It is now 05:20 and the south east (155° T) wind is 13 kn, COG is 59° and SOG a nice 6.9-8.1 kn. We have 1.045 NM to Horta and have sailed 1.159 NM since leaving St Martin. We passed the theoretical halfway mark last night. The weather forecast is for 8-20 kn from south east for the coming couple of days, but this morning’s forecast showed north east to north winds the last few days before reaching Horta. I hope this will not happen as it will be a pain to have to tack the last few days to Horta. But the forecast change all the time, which is a pain.

It is now 13:00 and we have had lunch prepared by Serena and are now enjoying a “cuppa” before the start of my watch at 14:00. The sailing conditions are excellent with a combination of SSE and SE wind of 12 kn giving us a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 7.5 kn in a good direction (Horta). Hardly any clouds, but a tremendous amount of weed and loads of the Man-of-war sailing fleet. We have given up on fishing and will try again once the weed disappear - if that will ever happen.

The water temperature remains at 23° and as we have no hot water, the shower water is cold; at least we can make water and thus have plenty of - cold - water.

A bit of technical talk: The solar panels works extremely well and with good sunshine they will - almost - fill up the 24V battery bank of six Gel batteries and one 12V house battery each day. The panels have a generating capacity of 750 Watt at 24V. I had them installed in Phuket, Thailand and they have changed the boat, as I have a lot of energy now. Coupled with the D400 wind generator, we have enough power to run the boat - but, off course, we need the sun and wind. The result is that instead of running the generator - as in the past - a couple of times each day. I now run the generator each 3-6 days, mainly to make water, keep the start battery charged and at times top up the 24V bank. They have changed New Dawn and I regret that I did not install them many years ago, as they would have been great to have in the Pacific Ocean.

Tuesday 9 June 2020 (Day 12).

It appears that one bad news is followed by another one. Today the seal of the hydraulic aft stay leaked oil and the mast started to pump which can be dangerous. We fixed it with Dynema rope and shekels and I pumped down the stay to the maximum and fixed the two running back-stays, to help support the mast. We the reefed the sails to reduce the pressure on the mast. At my evening watch it seems to hold OK.

Otherwise the day went well with nice sunshine and strong-ish wind of 14-22 kn. We have now sailed 1.456 NM since St Martin and have 753 NM to Horta (straight lines) and it looks like we can arrive on Monday 15 June, unless the weather change again; which it did (see below).

The temperature keeps dropping and the water is now 21.9°. We all wear long pants, jumpers and socks during the night watches. My blankets are in use and my Duvet is nice to use as well. But as the sun shines during the day we warm up nicely until a couple of hours before sunset, when the cold returns.

Today we had a nice pod of about 30 Dolphins swimming around us and as usually played and jumped out of the water at the bow. They seemed in a hurry and swam away at high speed after only staying about five minutes and headed north west. This was the first time we have had seen Dolphins since several months and it was - as always - great to see them swim around us.

Thursday 11 June 2020 (day 12).

Yesterday we received bad weather in the end of the day with big waves, lots of rolling and we finished the day in unpleasant conditions.

The water temperature is now only 20°. Today, so far at 14:00, the weather has been nice and pleasant again with sunshine and north east wind of 6-14 kn. The night temperatures are cold and it is humid. We wear more warm close at night than I can remember wearing since I left Luxembourg last January. Fortunately the Sargassa Weed seems to become less and less, so today the fishing gear was set out, but we only caught a plastic bag. I am surprised we have not yet caught any fish, but then we did not always trail the fishing line to avoid the Weed.

Back to the weather: The current forecast shows a nasty system approaching the Azores from the north, giving too much wind of gale force wind, gusting perhaps up to 45 kn and we are trying to find a way to avoid it, but it looks not good, as I am not in favor of sailing in strong winds with the furler broken and the aft stay damaged. Our ETA was to be Monday, but now I don’t know. It seems difficult to avoid.

Friday 12 June 2020 (day 13).

The night gave us pleasant sailing with 6-12 kn wind from north east with small waves, so the boat movements were great and we slept well. But most of our time is spend evaluating the twice daily weather forecasts and how to avoid sailing into that nasty system. We are now slowing down the boat and trying to get to a further north position to get away from the worth and also to obtain a better wind angle once we change the course for Horta. As far as I can see we will have to wait until Monday at lunch time before we can change course for Horta.

We will be trying to set sail once the worth winds has passed and hopefully can skirt along the outer parts of the system, but we are likely to get a good 20 kn gusts before Monday, but should hopefully avoid the worth strong wind.

But the forecast continues to change each time we download it at 07:00 and 19:00, when updates are available on the PredictWind and GRIP Files. At the moment It looks like the center of the low “might” stay south of Horta and move further south and west, but the winds coming from the north are still forecast to be strong.

A positive point today is that we have had a lot of Dolphins visiting us and as we were 5 NM from Horta we had a huge Humpback Whale swimming alongside, at a distance. Great to see and I know from my previous visits that there are a lot of both Dolphins and Whales around the Azores Islands.

As to the Man-Of-War: are they baby Jelly Fish of some other species? Friends always told me they are Man-Of-War, but now I have seen a few that has grown larger and started to develop below the water a round body that could resemble a start of a Jelly Fish with blue long tails, that could look like these a Jellyfish has and that burn our skin? But why do they breed here in the middle of the Atlantic? I need to find out one day. An update on 4 July, is that apparently they are called "Portuguese Man O'War".

Saturday 13 June 2020 (day 14).

Last night became rough and unpleasant with big wave and strong wind and we head NW to avoid the bad weather and waiting to turn east and head for Horta when it has cleared. So far we have done 1.737 NM and have 642 NM to go.

A Catamaran called Boogie Woogie from Croatia came within 100 meters at 17:00 and we had a chat. They sail with a couple of kids and have a young British crew on board. A half hour later they called me asking for medical help as their British crew had passed out and seemed to get into a coma and were running out of medication and test equipment and asked for help. The British crew was Diabetic and and had collapsed. I told them to wake him up and give him sugar via Coca-Cola, Jam, Sugar water, etc.. And to keep him awake and not to give him his pills which is usually meant to lower the sugar level. I am surprised he did not have the equipment needed for a Diabetic going for a long sailing trip. I offered them a test set and emergency injection - that will increase the sugar level quickly - and that they would have to come close to us to get it. They told me they would try my advises and report back later on. Then they changed course to followed us for a few hours just in case his condition didn’t improve. A while later they returned to their initial course, as the crew seemed to be better.

Sunday 14 June 2020 (day 15).

Last nights forecast changed in the sense that it looked to be a good time to tack and we could finally head for Azores, as we would be sailing on the western end of the windy section of the low and we would not get too strong wind most of the way to Horta, but that there would be some light wind sections a couple of days before Horta. So at 19:00 we reefed the sails and tacked heading ESE in the direction of Horta. Several of our friends also noticed this window and most of them also tacked. So we are now a large batch of boats heading in the same direction even though we are several hundred NM apart.

This morning we slowed during Alex’s watch and he unfurled the sails a bit, but kept two reefs in the Genoa and three reefs in the mainsail. After 12:00 we are making and acceptable progress with 16-24 kn NE wind, but have large waves and it is getting very cold with the water temperature now below 20°. But at times the sun shine through the thin layer of clouds cover and we warm up a bit. Three hours later the wind changed to more north and the squalls increased the wind speed, so I am glad that we are still well reefed. The waves are 2.5-4 meters and often diminish the boat speed to only 3.5 kn when we are hit by a big wave. We have now 567 NM to go.

Monday 15 June 2020 (day 16).

Sunday ended up with a rough ride with strong 15-20 kn winds from ENE to NNE and large unpleasant waves of up to four and five meters at intervals. We changed the WP 10° to the south of east trying to improve the boat’s motions - it did help a tiny bit. We also reefed both sails a lot before dark, also in an attempt to improve the boat’s movements. It is now 00:15 and the conditions are still rough, but the waves have calmed slightly during the last couple of hours.

I downloaded the weather forecast and, so far, the tactic seems to work, as we are at the western end of the storm and should remain on that part for the coming two days and thus should have avoided the worth parts of the storm. The coming 1.5 days I see less wind and it should come a bit more from north, giving us a better wind angle and a more comfortable ride. If this forecast holds - it did not -, I might consider to video the boat below the waterline to be sure we are not dragging anything from the troubles we had two days ago. I want to be absolutely sure that nothing can get into the propeller once we reach Horta and need to manoeuvre and use the engine in the marina. Last time I was in Horta, a boat got a sheet into the propeller as they entered the harbour in a severe storm and they seriously damaged the boat when it hit the breakwater. I heard them calling for help on the VHF and we got the Maritime Police to help dragging them free, but the boat was a total loss even though they got to the slip just before they sank. The boat was owned by a couple on a small budget, no insurance and it was all they possessed. How sad.

As I have said before I am amazed of the current weather pattern in the North Atlantic. We have not had any of the usual west winds that dominate this area, but rather northerly and easterly winds. We have been close hauled almost all the way, so far, and have had to tack several times. I hope this will change for those following I our wake and the weather will become more normal.

The spirit is fine on board. OK we are all a bit tired, but none of us are unhappy even with the less sleep and with the cold weather. No serious tension has yet been noted and we all manage the situation in an appropriate manner. We eat well from both the fresh food Serena has and is preparing, as well from the prepared meals from the freezer. But we are dreaming and talking about the steak, wine and cold beer we will have as soon as we will be allowed ashore and dine at Peters Cafe Sport!

Rumors continue to circulate about when and how Horta will ease the lockdown. At the moment I only listen with a half ear and will wait and see once I have the facts. We hope for the best for our arrival.

We have now 508 NM to go to Horta. The ETA is for Thursday 18 June, but if the wind becomes lighter, this can easily change to an arrival for Friday. It would be nice to arrive in daylight, but if we are delayed , I might slowdown to arrive Friday morning. I do know the harbour and the marina well from two previous visits, but this time because of the lockdown, there seems to be 45-70 boats anchored inside the harbour and it can be problematic to slalom through them at dark.

Tuesday 16 June 2020 (day 17).

Yesterday was a very nice day with sunshine most of the day and relatively steady wind. But it was cold with the water temperature of only 19°. So far today at 08:30 looks promising with sunshine, modest waves and northerly wind of 10 kn giving us a speed of 7.2 kn, but the west going current on 1.3 kn slows us to 5.5-5.9 kn. The weather forecast is still for north wind 6-15 kn and, as we are heading east, it is ideal.

We see more and more Dolphins and a few minutes ago there were a huge pod of them which looked like hundreds spreading out to the north of us. Kindly, some of them came to say hello and and a few swam along with us and jumped in front of us. The Dolphins we have seen the last days are generally smallish. It is always nice to get their visits and see their jumping show.

Wednesday 17 June 2020 (day 18).

Today the wind abandoned us, almost completely. We only received 4-7 kn wind from the NNW, so we had to ask Volvo to get us moving. Hardly any waves, only a moderate swell, but nice sunshine, although through some clouds. The water temperature remains at 19°.

I am in contact with companies in Horta, UK and France to try to line up the works and see if we can do some of the works ourselves, as there is limited possibilities and no specialized in the hydraulic. It is now 16:00 and Volvo is still working. We have 185 NM to go and there is a chance we can arrive Thursday evening, hopefully before dark.

The lockdown conditions has been relaxed a little and we will need a Covid-19 test on arrival. If negative we will be allowed ashore. There is a testing facility at the harbour, but it seems a waiting time of 48 hours to be tested and another 24 hours to get the results. At the moment the marina is full and there are 70+ boats at anchor, so it risk to be squeezed.

Thursday 18 June 2020 (day 19).

During my watch at 11:00 I spotted Pico island on a distance of 51 NM. Yes 51 NM as it is a high volcanic island with a peak of 2.353 meters and Faial island blends into it in the foreground as it is only 1.045 meters high and we arrive from the west the two islands looks like one, at this distance.

We have had almost no wind for two days and are running on Volvo power, which is very boring indeed. I dislike to be motoring and have only used the engine for about 2.600 hours during my 16 years and 95.000 NM I have owned New Dawn.

Now the weather is nice with sunshine, but it is still cold, especially at night and the water temperature is now only 18°, down from 29° in St Martin. Well the Azores are not for beach going anyway.

We finally arrived in Horta at 19:00 and dropped anchor inside the harbor had a few drinks and a good meal on board. Friday morning we checked in via VHF and were allowed to get the test Saturday morning and Sunday were told we were all negative and could then get a squeezed place four deep in the afternoon. We then had a great meal at Peters Cafe Sport (see photos).