Day 14 – The penultimate day

Shearwater can smell the barn.  We’ve been blasting along for 48 hours now with two 190 nm days in a row.  The winds have been consistently above 20 knots the entire time.  If there is one thing that has surprised us most on this trip it is the wind.  It is just so windy, day after day after day.  Not stormy so much, just strong wind and this isn’t just how it is crossing the North Atlantic.  It’s not always like this, but we seem to have hit a “sweet spot” with regard to the weather and the wind just keeps on coming.  Also, I have to say that the forecasts, gribs, and PredictWind routing have been universally 5 knots under that actual wind speed and often 10 knots low, even for current day forecasts.  For instance, the last two days were forecast as 15 knots.  We had 20-30 the entire time.  I’m not complaining, just commenting on the reality.  On the bright side we are clicking off miles faster than you can say “almost there”.

The latest weather challenge is this – two days ago the wind blew from SW to W and we roared along to the east, holding north of 40N as “all” the experts and the forecasts say to do when approaching the Azores, so that you can cut across the high pressure at a right angle, minimizing time spent in light air.  Okay, sounds good.  The catch is that now that we are ready to start turning south the wind has also backed to the south, with no significant let up in wind speed.  Now we “need” to turn to the south or we will just blow right by the Azores, but the weather gods don’t seem to favor that idea.  Where are the light airs of the high pressure?  I keep holding out that eventually the winds will ease and we’ll be able to turn south, but right now the miles keep clicking by and we are still on the express train headed east.

Speaking of almost there, weather permitting we should pass close by Flores, the northwestern most island in Azores Archipelago, tonight after dark.  We are hoping there will be lights ashore to provide some indication there is an island in the vicinity.  From Flores it is roughly 140 more miles to Horta on the island of Faial.  That means we may arrive tomorrow evening.  The big question is will we make it before nightfall, because if we don’t we’ll have to standoff the island overnight and wait to approach the marina the following morning as we don’t fancy making a landfall in a completely unfamiliar area in the dark.  In fact, is the buoy system reversed in the Azores from the “red right returning” system in the US?  Better check on that.

Kindly ask your neighborhood wind god to pass along a request for lighter or more westerly winds for us.  We’re not picky, either will do fine.  Thanks.

Current position -40 11.49n 33 26.22w
Distance to go -243nm
24 hour run – 190nm