Are we there yet?

Friday May 31, 2024

Today is my dad’s birthday in heaven. I miss him more than I ever thought possible. Especially in times like this, I wish he could be here to enjoy these moments of triumph and turmoil with me. But I know he is watching over me. I love you and miss you daddy!

Tuesday came with a small window of reprieve from the building and angry seas. I was even able to ride the Peloton in the morning, which was truly a blessing. This trip has become exhausting. Not with regards to sleep, because we each get a full 8 hour every night, but with the intense movement of the boat. Just sitting is an active process. It takes a toll on you to have to constantly brace and balance yourself. It’s like a never ending episode of Wipeout. Going about the day to day without falling offf the boat, or down the stairs, or off the couch or out of bed. Either of us had been able to exercise for several days. It was amazing how rejuvenated I felt after just 30 minutes in the bike. It’s therapy for my soul.

The reprieve in the weather was short lived, as the winds and seas swiftly began the packed up again. We definitely put this bot nd ourselves to the test. So far we’ve all survived.

Over the next two days, winds would build to 28 knots and the seas became massive walls of water 10-15 feet high. There are several different weather systems here right now. There is a Low in front of us, this is what is giving us our wind and sea. There is a High behind us with another Low behind that. On Wednesday we were getting stuck in the High, causing decreasing winds. That’s sounds really great, except the Low then moves faster than the boat, and then we would get stuck in the leading edge of the Low with winds in the 30-40 knot range. We definitely do not want to be there. So we motorsailed NE to get out of the high and into the trailing edge of the Low to allow it to pull us east as it moves towards Azores. And though we were successful in doing that, it was a rough ride. We endured this the rest of Wednesday, all of Thursday and into Friday.

It’s Friday morning and the winds and starting to subside and the sea is beginning to settle down. Right now we are in third place in the multihull division of the ARC rally, but there are two boats on our heels. We need to keep our speed up. We have 560 nm to go. It’s going to be a race to the finish. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen.