The girls saying goodbye to dadda.

Tue Jun 15 2021

Ok, here we go! In a few minutes we will cross over the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel Bridge, and we’ll be in the open Atlantic Ocean. Next stop, the Azores!

Day 2 has begun

The sun has just risen on Day 2 of our offshore trip to the Azores. It’s our first morning at sea, after a late afternoon start from Norfolk yesterday. We are currently motoring at about 5 knots, and keeping our speed down. There is a bit of a low pressure area that is south of us right now, and moving NE, so we are going slowly to hopefully let it pass by in front of us. Conditions here are pretty nice, a bit of a swell, but virtually no wind at the moment, so we are rolling a bit.

Day 3 Dolphins

Thu Jun 17 2021

We got into the Gulf Stream yesterday evening, and our speed over the ground was immediately boosted to over 10 knots. By this morning we had crossed all the way through, and unfortunately can’t stay in it to catch some free miles towards the Azores. We are continuing to stay to the south in order to let a weather system pass by us,… this has also meant that we’ve been running the engine almost constantly— it’s a good thing that we carry a lot of diesel!!! Hopefully by tonight we will be able to get the sails back up…
Early this morning we had a bit of a nasty looking little bit of dark stormy clouds and rain, with a little bit of thunder and lightning chasing after us, when all of a sudden we were surrounded by Dolphins playing in our bow wave. It’s beautiful to watch them zipping around in the crystal clear blue water under the bow. Anyhow, the little storm mostly went around us in the end. Now we’re rolling back and forth in the swell, just hoping for enough wind to put some stabilizing sails up soon.

Day 4, some frustrations

Fri Jun 18 2021

Last night we finally got some sail up again, as a squall passed over us the wind went from 9 knots to 19 in about a minute. We were soon rocking along at 8.5knots, and shut the engine down for the first time since leaving Norfolk. By this morning, the wind had gone very light, so I took the opportunity to stop the boat and dive under to check the propeller. If you haven’t experienced that deep blue open ocean colour, I’m sorry, I don’t have the words to describe it properly… Shortly after that, the wind picked up again to about 15 knots, and we got Merdeka doing the first real sailing she’s done with us- one reef in the mainsail (just because), and full Genoa— almost 9 knots of boatspeed, and so smooth. Everyone commented on how great the motion felt… but it was not to last long. We were soon down to 3 knots of wind, after receiving a forecast of at least 15. Back came the rumble of the big Diesel engine, and we spent the afternoon motoring again, while repairing the cockpit table, that had broken loose from the cockpit floor. Now, as the sun approaches the horizon for our fourth night at sea, we are still motoring, though the wi d is expected to pick up during the night. Potentially, we may have some very strong winds coming in the next few days- hopefully they’ll be from the right direction! In the meantime, I’ve begun keeping a close eye on our diesel tanks,… it’s a good thing we carry a lot, because we’ve certainly been using a lot. It sure is beautiful out here though. We saw a few Portuguese Man-O-Wars today, and the first few flying fish zipping out over the waves away from us.

Day 5, NOW we are sailing!

Sat Jun 19 2021

Who knows how long conditions will maintain for, but right now we are having some BEEEEAAUUUTIFUL sailing! 18kts true wind, we are romping along at 8 knots, Genoa poled out, main preventer-ed out (both to leeward). Hydrovane doing most of the steering, with a little help from the autopilot. Boat is flat, and zipping along nicely! 1 reef in the main, full Genoa. Can we arrange for conditions to stay just like this for the next 14 days or so?.. Oh yeah- and the solar panels are keeping the batteries fully topped up, without needing the engine so far.

Day 6, Part 1: all about the night shift

Sun Jun 20 2021

I had two rotations on watch last night, the first one was from 10pm until midnight. Before it got dark out, we had taken precautionary reefs in the mainsail and Genoa, the main was down to its third reef (its smallest size, besides taking it down altogether) and we had rolled up some of the Genoa to reduce the size of that too. Wind speeds were getting close to 30 knots from behind us, the waves were starting to build up in size, but Merdeka was doing great. It’s a pretty exhilarating feeling when a 50 foot boat that weighs 50,000 pounds manages to surf a wave, and it was happening frequently. Boatspeed sometimes hit well over 9 knots, a few times close to 10 (I think that’s pretty fast for this big heavy boat). I’ve been watching the moon grow bigger each night, we’ll see it go from a sliver when we started, to a full moon and on its way back down again, before we arrive in the Azores. The boat was totally under control, it was bright enough that the moon was casting a shadow of Merdeka on the port side, despite a mostly clouded sky. We’ve already had night conditions from completely clear with the Milky Way arched directly overhead, to dark and snarly with lots of lightning all around us.
Dave came on shift at midnight, I went below to sleep. About an hour later, I woke up to the boat “rockin’ and rollin’” pretty hard. I looked at the instruments in the pilot house, 33 knots of wind, but 4.5 knots of current flowing directly against the wind. Outside the boat now looked more like a top-loading washing machine- big steep waves coming from several different directions. I checked the sea temperature gauge, and sure enough it had gone from just below 26C to over 28C. A later download of the current chart confirmed what I suspected: we had stumbled into a “wrong-way” meander of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a very strong southwest to northeast current in the North Atlantic Ocean. The main part of it is about 100 miles north of where we are now, but like a river, it has currents that “eddy-out” from the main stream, sometimes flowing in the completely opposite direction. We had found one of those, and for a few hours, it made for some unpleasant conditions with lots of rolling and pitching- lots of noise inside the boat. Despite that, again, Merdeka handled it well, by the time I came out for my second shift at 4am, the horizon was starting to lighten, and the sea state had returned to normal.
Now it’s about 10am, and we’re overdue to get some more sail back up and put some more horsepower into the boat, so, on with it!

Day 6, part 2 daytime

Sun Jun 20 2021

I’m starting to settle into the “offshore groove” now. Time definitely behaves differently out here. With the boat constantly rolling, sometimes unpredictably, everything takes longer to accomplish. Today we had lots more 30 knot winds, but also some big wind speed changes up and down. Every time the wind changes significantly, then the sails have to change too. A good part of the morning and early afternoon was spent in letting out the reefs in the mainsail from last night, and then putting them back in again as the wind built up in strength.
For dinner tonight, I decided to try and use up some of our fresh food that is starting to “turn south” after a week at sea. How about a big ol’ pot of pasta sauce with lots of goodies thrown in? Bad idea… once I really got into dinner production, I realized that a pot full of boiling water for the pasta, along with a cast iron frying pan for the meat, and then a pot full of pasta sauce— all swinging around as ingredients slide back and forth on the counter, as I try to hang on with one hand while using a knife with the other… not the best plan as we surf down 3 metre swells, occasionally rolling hard to port and starboard. Anyhow, in the end, I got it all made without burning or stabbing myself, and without having pasta sauce sloshed against the walls,… and the crew unanimously gave it a thumbs up (might have been two thumbs up, if everyone weren’t using their other hand to hang on), and I felt like an accomplished sailor for having managed to make it in these conditions. And now, he we are, already back into night watches. The wind is down a little, but the waves are still up, and it’s looking like it’s going to be a very dark night ahead. Tomorrow, some big jobs to change the way the sails are rigged so we can hopefully start turning more northward than the wind is currently allowing us to go, with the way we are set up tonight.

Day 7, last night was NOT in the brochure

Mon Jun 21 2021

We shifted to each of us taking a single 3-hour watch last night. It was a very dark, overcast, damp night. After some of the spray from a few of the waves that slapped us yesterday made its way into the pilot house, the floor is quite salty and sticky. The wind had eased off a bit, which meant we were wallowing around in the leftover waves. I rolled back and forth in my berth, hot and humid, as Merdeka leaned hard to Port and Starboard through the waves. There was some lightning off on the horizon that looked for awhile like it might be on a collision course with us- thankfully morning light arrived before that happened, and the storm dissipated and disappeared.

First thing this morning, once everyone was up, we gybed to begin heading further north. There is a lot of rigging holding everything in place on each tack, moving the sails and equipment from one side of the boat to the other can take awhile. The sails are now back up to full size, in about 15 knots of breeze. The waves have settled down again and become a bit more consistent. Today definitely IS in the brochure. It’s sunny and warm, with a pleasant breeze blowing over the deck. This morning was officially shower day, each of us got a turn to get ourselves cleaned up (this was my first shower since Sunday night LAST week- the runoff water looked a little muddy in the shower sump…). Now I’m sitting out in the cockpit, listening to the rush of sea foam past the boat. The boat is reasonably level, and I’ve just had a scrambled egg wrap, coffee and orange juice while enjoying the amazing view and ocean air. Brian is breaking out the card deck, looks like a game of hearts is up. Life is good!