[Greyhawkupdates] Slow Progress

[Tim Allen GREYHAWK]

We did get some wind today, a little bit, and we've been reaching or running under spinnaker most of the day. Looking at the latest position reports, it may seem like we're falling behind, but it is all part of our strategy.... 

uh huh, that's it. 

No really, we've been trying to get west to stay out of the gulf stream currents that are running down right along the rhumb line, and so far the currents we've seen and what's been reported by others all seem to be in congruence with our analysis of the available data, and so we're sticking to our game plan and hoping that it pays off. 

If you're following our track on iboat, you probably see some jogs where we first put up the spinnaker and took off, or where a wind shift forces us to go one way or another, and periods of acceleration when we're able to reach up. But today's track should look a lot better than last night's! Aggressive described the cookie-crumb trail on his GPS plotter screen as a perfect dollar sign! He said he took a picture of it. I don't think we drew any dollars signs (or hearts or turtles) on the ocean with our track last night, but definitely some switchbacks and maybe a loop-de-loop...

We did have some dolphins visit us earlier in the day. It was very cool to see them swimming in the very clear blue water down below the boat, as well as surfacing next to us.

As evening settles, we're hoping that there will be enough wind through the night to keep going with the spinnaker. The chat on the radio, though, is about Herb Hillenberg's forecast of possible gale force winds by Sunday evening for the Gulf Stream region... The other forecasts we have do suggest strong winds (20-25 knots) on a beam reach in another day or two, but we would prefer it not be a gale...

We do appreciate the short notes of encouragement that people have sent to us at 881622483078 at msg.iridium.com, the free SMS text messaging service that comes with our sat phone.

Regards,

Wendy and Tim
GREYHAWK




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