It's been 24 hours of motoring and motor-sailing since I last wrote. The winds have been very light, and behind us, often giving us no apparent wind. That makes it HOT. During the day we shuffle from spot to spot in the cockpit searching for shade. The seas have been very flat and following. Couldn't ask for a calmer passage.
We finally made it out of the Gulf Stream late yesterday afternoon. The boat looked like it was moving well through the water, but when you have up to a 3.7 kt current against you, it makes for slow going. We're currently about 10-15 miles off the north western coast line where there's a counter current to the Gulf Stream. We've actually picked up 0.5 to 1 kt of current going with us. Yeah! Unfortunately that's about to end as we head past the end of Cuba. Once we clear Cuba then we have to contend with the Antilles current which sweeps between Mexico and Cuba at speeds up to 7 kts! This will push us north when we're headed west. We saw 3.6 kts when we crossed it coming from Mexico.
Not much to report other than we rendezvoused with another sailboat yesterday and transferred 5 gallons of fuel to them. I had seen a sailboat ahead of us and then I heard them calling a passing cruise ship. They were asking for a weather report which the person on the cruise ship didn't have handy. I provided it and then they asked if we had any gasoline that they could have. We had spare gas, so after altering courses we pulled up to their boat, threw a line to them, and they hauled the jerry can across. They claimed to have gotten bad fuel and they use outboards for propulsion when getting into harbors. Let me tell you, this was quite the boat! According to the postcard they: teach raft building and sailing and claimed to have rafted from Ireland to the east coast of the US; empower individuals to live their dreams; and demonstrate the creative use of recycled materials...And believe me, their boat looked recycled. They have a web site: www.floatingneutrinos.com I can't wait to have a look at it. I can assure you that the individuals aboard were interesting...
We've been fishing too. Hauled in 2 nice sized dolphins (no, not the Flipper kind), but I managed to lose one while landing it.
We expect to be in Isla Mujeres sometime early tomorrow AM. I'll report after we're in.
-- Geoff, Sue & Bill
Log ID: 390
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