43-50N / 025-48W
Wind SEly at force 5-6, steering NEly at 5+knots under upper topsails, courses, fore & main topmast-staysl’s
Our skies are grey, overcast and low clouds scooting across. But the barometer is pretty high and steady, we are sailing along just fine. The Picton Castle is about 800 miles from Ireland, the Azorean Islands are 300 miles to our south and Lunenburg is now about 1800 miles back in our wake, we have sailed every inch apart from four hours motoring in a flat calm a couple weeks ago. We are having a North Atlantic passage to be very pleased and satisfied with… thus far. We could crack on more sail and go a little faster but with the way seas are arrayed the fo’c’sle gang would get a bit of a roller coaster ride. We are plugging along just fine at 120 miles a day, not so bad.
Our afternoon workshops have been much about greater weather patterns, dealing with lows and sail handling and sail choices and decision making in strong winds and heavy weather.
Chibley the cat is very talkative lately. I am convinced that when she meows off at me or someone else she is absolutely sure that she is clearly articulating a very specific and logical point and quite likely giving instructions. She comes into the chart house, twirls around, meows at me or someone else looking up with her big, soulful cat eyes, flips her tail with a little curl at the tip and goes out on deck with one final glance. She has made her point clear and left us to sort it out. Trouble is, we have no idea what she said apart from “meow.” If she had words she would be using them. As it is I think she is pretty sure that she has words, maybe she does and we are just too dense to sort it out…she likes the cargo hatch if there are people on it doing something, like working on sails.