Voyage of Traveler / Blog

Traveler’s Dec. 5 Position Report:

Our 1300 utc position, distance made good over the previous 24 hours, and nautical miles to go (MTG) to Barbados are:

Dec. 5 - Day 14
16-20N, 050-08W
156 nm
580 MTG
Our ETA is Wednesday, around noon.

All’s well onboard Traveler.
We had a squall blow by us this morning, which gave us 30 knots of wind and sustained boat speeds of over 9 knots for more than an hour, with a top speed of 11.5.  Fun ride!  Then, as usual, after the squall there is a long lull.  The wind dropped to about 6 knots, causing our boat speed to fall to 4 knots, so we kicked on the engine and motored for a couple of hours until the wind picked up again.  And running the engine gave us a couple of hours to charge the batteries and make some water.

To break up the daily routine, I rigged the boatswain’s chair to a block on the outboard end of the boom, which was well over the side of the boat, and we played a dunking game I called “Flying Fish.” The guy in the chair (first me, then Brian) got dunked in the warm Atlantic as the line was eased out from the wench.  And then he was dragged in the water until the boat rolled to the other side, swinging him forward a bit and then hard into the side of the hull, hopefully with his feet out to absorb the contact (read collision!)  Plus, the force of the sea while sailing along at 6 knots could have easily ripped us out of the chair.  (We did wear a life jacket, just in case.)  It is a good thing that I went first because Brian wasn’t going to do it until he saw his old man do it, then he had to do it.  And if Brian went first and I saw how dangerous it was and how you could really get hurt by the roll of the boat slamming you into the side of the hull, I would not have gone.

But Brian and I managed to get wet, have some fun, hang on, and not get hurt.  Too badly.

Larry and Yansen wisely stayed safely in the cockpit, took pictures and laughed their asses off.

Living the Dream,
Crossing the Atlantic,
Michael
with Brian, Yansen and Larry