Voyage of Traveler / Blog

Traveler’s Dec. 8 Position Report:

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

Dec. 8 - Day 17
13-14N, 058-55W
188.7 nm –another new boat record!
43 MTG
Our ETA is this afternoon!
This will be our final Position Report

All’s well onboard Traveler.

Fish report: I only thought we were going too fast to troll, but even though we were doing over 8 knots we decided to give it a try yesterday afternoon.  Within an hour Yansen caught a yellow fin tuna!  We ate some immediately, sashimi-style, with ginger, wasabi and soy sauce.  And had delicious sautéed tuna fillets for dinner with a fine chenin blanc from the Canary Islands to celebrate our last dinner on this Atlantic crossing.  Yansen also cooked and ate the head, including the eyes and the heart, as is the custom in Indonesia!  We found out that there is a lot of good tasting meat in a tuna’s head.  Brian, Larry and I each had some.

With the crew of two (out of 225) ARC sailboats that left the Canary Islands together with us not making it (a lost rudder and a dismasting, they had to abandon ship and were rescued), we are especially thankful that we had a safe crossing.  Traveler, and her crew, performed very well.

This 2,650 nautical mile passage has been a fast one.  I was expecting 18 to 20 days, and it only took 16 days and 6 hours.  As of 0900 local time (UTC -4), we are only 29 miles away from our closest point of land on Barbados with 43 miles to go to our anchorage at Carlisle Bay, so we should arrive about 3pm this afternoon, just in time to clear immigration and customs.  And enjoy a Barbados-style Happy Hour!

Living the Dream,
Michael
with Brian, Yansen and Larry

P.S.  I’m really looking forward to watching the USC Trojans play in the Rose Bowl this year, and now that we are in the Caribbean I should be able to find the game on TV at a sports bar.  What’s that?  The Ducks are going to the Rose Bowl?  And the Trojans are going where? To the Emerald Bowl?  Where’s that?