Friday, June 8th Position 31°33.147W; 47°54.005W

This morning we had bacon and scrambled eggs with champagne to celebrate half way :-)
At around 7 am we hit the 1100 Nm. Last couple of days we had good winds and sailed on a broad reach, doing around 7 kts on average.

Lack of sleep is beginning to take it's toll. Last night all the guys messed up their watch timing. Frits sort of fell asleep during his watch, I woke up 2 hours early, disorientated, Arie only slept an hour ad too was told to go back to bed again. Later, when I woke Frits for his next watch, he told me he'd be there in a minute. But 2 seconds later he was vast asleep again....

So, I guess you can say that if it wasn't for Eline, we wouldn't be celebrating this morning :-)

In all I must say that Eline is one of the most complete and most competent female crew members that I had on board sofar !!

On the sextant part we aren't that lucky. Although the weather is fine, the sun is behind thin high clouds most of the day, keeping us from taking a clear sight :-(
In all the weather is changing. Getting more North by the day, it's cooling of at night. Last night I actually put on a sweater. Anyway. During the day it's still warm, if not hot, with a nice cool breeze.

Wednesday, June 6th ; position 29°55.629N; 51°35.418W

So far we sailed about 920 Nm. And another 1300 Nm to go.
Today and last night we had good winds and could make up for the days of motoring speedwise.
Last night we had our first meal with canned meat, sort of rubberish meat balls, hmm..
The toast on Scott's birthday made it okay though. However this morning we caught a huge dolphin fish. With joined forces we got it on board while I was handling the rod, Arie managed to hook it. The baby bath to kill it was to small though. It took more then a couple of blows on it's head and a knife to make sure it was dead. After I gutted it, Frits cut it into nice peaces, enough for 4 days.
Anyway, for a start we had a very an nice lunch :-) Of course we also had a toast on Marc's birthday.
As the day went by we changed sails a couple of times. We started with the gennaker and later set the staysail too. Then the wind veered and we had to loose the staysail. Afterwards we went back to the twin genoa's. It's keeping you busy :-)
We also took some sights today and worked out the pro forma's. Tomorrow we'll do the plottings. The sun's out and very hot all day but most of the time not clear enough to take a sight...  anyway, it's fun to use the sextant again except for Eline, she  could not be persuaded to give it a try too. She's sticking to the old fashioned GPS :-) and steered the boat while we were fiddling around with the almanac and reduction tables. She also made some more yoghurt, the best sofar!

Just when I was about to write this update, I was called on deck because of some rope we were dragging. Hmm,... we couldn't find a simple way to loose it so I decided to heave to and put on my swimsuit. Once in the water, it was quite easy to free the rope of the prop and within 10 minutes we were sailing again.

June 5th position 28°21.972 N 54°53.578W

We just gibed, after 2 days motoring through the center of a high we picked up a westerly and had a great day sailing, first with the genaker and later, when the wind picked up a bit more, we set the twin genoa's,,
During the motoring hours I tried to explain Arie and Frits the basics of astronavigation. That's not that easy, but with the help of some books we managed.
In the mean time Eline backed a bread. She turns out to be very knowledgeable in making your own stuff like making yoghurt out of yoghurt. In all she's very enlightening …as she proved by setting my hair on fire :-)

Arie too backed some bread. So far it's not eatable, hard like a rock but it might get softer next day or so..
Sofar we didn't manage to catch any fish, too bad because we ran out of fresh meat and are now down to canned stuff.
Later that day we had a surfing competition. Frits had set the speed record at 9.6 kts. Arie got to 9.1 and Eline 9.4. Time for me to set a better goal at 9.9 kts. Eline tried very hard to beat me while Frits was riding a real rodeo down below trying to cook dinner. Luckily he knows this game very well and could anticipate the turns and hold himself more or less
We decided to stop the competition to give Frits a fair chance in cooking. That is.. Arie and I stopped... Eline only pretended and very sneaky clocked 10.8... poor Frits.

Early this morning we decided to gibe and are now pointing directly to Horta. The wind picked up a bit more and now we're doing 8 kts average and set the speed record to 13.8 kts [Frits] The whole maneuver took a while and knocked out Eline. She's asleep now while Frits's teaching Arie how to surf better and I'm fighting my keyboard that got coffee soaked and now all the keys come up with random letters … argh

Friday, June 1st ; position 21º 52.345 N, 60º 12.064 W

The sail yesterday became perfect after all when a pack of dolphins came by and played around the bow for 15 minutes or so. Eline and Arie tried to take pictures.. only Frits got a whole dolphin and not just a tail or splash. But then again he was smart enough to film them ha :-)

We had dinner a bit too late. On the crossing to the Carib it was dark around 6 pm which was a good reference. Now it's not getting dark before 7:30 meaning we eat around 8 pm which is already during the sleeping time of the second watch :-* So starting today we'll eat a bit earlier.

The night went very well and with full main, genoa and staysail TC sails really well and very balanced.
Early in the morning we had a bleep on the Sea me. It took a while before we could actually see the vessel. It was a weird boat, no freighter or fishing vessel. If we had been around Venezuela I would have expect it to be pirates. The gave us right of way but there was no one on deck nor did they tried to contact us. Hmm, they didn't seemed anxious to be contacted either so we just waved and sailed on. Leaving Eline a  bit disappointed cause she'd love to meet up with Johnny Depp.

In the mean time we all get along even better by the day. We also get to learn each other pretty well. Sometimes to our surprise.. who would ever think Frits would like to eat muesli for breakfast and salad [which he made himself with some help of Arie] for lunch? Eline turned out to be very creative with food. To celebrate her parents 53rd anniversary she made special hamburgers on sesame sandwiches with lettuce tomato and cucumber:-) Congratulations Wim and Anneke !!   

By the way, even with lunch Eline was very creative with the waste and made Arie a set of Theo and Thea teeth from orange peelings.

I installed the shower on the swimming platform, after 3 days we all could use a bit of washing :-) Also it's a nice way to cool off a bit. It's getting real warm. When we sailed to the Carieb we went east – west, meaning that in the afternoon the sun was behind the main sail. Now we sail NE and the  sun is shining directly in the cockpit all day.

So whatever we need to do,we do in the morning before it get's too hot. This morning Eline and I cleaned the fridge while Frits and Arie were hacking the coleslaw... hmm next time … :-)

Thursday, May 31st ; position 19º 43.078 N, 62º 06.850 W

We left Ange de Colombier, St Barth around 20:30 UT after spending a beautiful day in a more beautiful bay. We thought to at least have one lazy day before setting sail for the Azores.
It wasn't all lazy however. It turned out the alternator wasn't working. After an hour or so we found the problem, a simple fuse .. :-*
I also tried to mount my new tricolor. However, when one bolt of the old one would not come off, I  decided to leave it. I didn't want to break something on the day we planned to leave. Still, working at the top of the mast, I just touched the propeller of the wind speed meter and it come off right away, completely dried out.. So all information on wind speed is an educated guess :-)

While Frits and I were checking the alternator, Arie and Eline prepared dinner, so we didn't have to cook the first night under sail.

We took off with a very nice breeze, around 16 kts, and had e wonderful sail! It pretty much stayed  the same so far, giving us a great speed. So far we do over 7 kts most of the time, except for the time we were dragging a fishing line with a couple of buoys.. Luckily I  could cut the line quite easy.
The night went smooth and fine. I decided to work with the 4 on 4 off watch system to start with, so that there would be 2 on deck all the time. We all felt more confident since it's a new boat for the most of us.
The sailing so far is very close to perfect!!, Nice breeze, sunny with some occasionally clouds, running close reach at NE course and all enjoy it very very much!!

Sunday, May 29th , still in Bobby's Marina, St Martin, but afloat again :-)

So far so good! We're having a good time and we get along very well. Arie and Frits did a very good job in getting the AIS running, but is was a challenging job. It took them hours, it was hot and there wasn't much room to work and they had to solder very tiny parts. Anyway they got it done and it works perfect.

In the mean time Eline and I went to the supermarket to do the shopping. However, the one we wanted to go to was closed Sunday's and the next one the taxi drove us to was extremely expensive.

So we decided to wait until Monday.

Andy and Rene did a good job in fixing a new hull through fitting but when they wanted to mount the sea cock, there wasn't enough room to make the turns. So they went back to Budget Marine to get a straight connector and fixed it.

In all it took way more time to get back in the water. Not that that is a problem, we all are fine with it, it's just what it is and we're not really in a hurry or something. We talked about the plan this morning and decided not to rush, we're not obliged to leave today and also we don't have to go to Antigua, which is 90 Nm straight upwind :-*

We still want to do a first short trip before the crossing so instead of Antigua we will go to St. Barth, that's upwind too but only 20 Nm :-)

The anchorage looks very promising and it would be nice to have a real tropical swim before we leave :-)

Marie, Andy's wife drove us to the supermarket this afternoon. They really are very friendly and helpful. But then again, Andy is a sailor too. He crossed the Atlantic about 60 times, 3 circumnavigations and a lot of racing.

Doing the shopping was fun. The four of us together with Marie went over to CostUless. Everybody was collecting stuff. Eline, who was in charge of the list, wasn't getting anywhere :-) So every 25 minutes or so we had to stop and give her a chance to check the list again. Anyway, we got everything quite easy and Marie was really a great help in driving us.

When we finally got back to the boat it was about happy hour and a great dinner at Curry in a Hurry's.

This morning we got all the stuff delivered and got all the remaining things done, filling up the water and fuel tanks, go over to immigration and lots more.

At 4:30 pm we'll finally be off then for our first leg to St Barths :-)

Sunday, May 27th Bobby's Marina, St Martin

The trip was long but okay. At Antigua they surprised me by having my luggage labeled through. to St Martin. I was told to pick it up there and have it checked in again since the last part was with a different airline. When the luggage belt stopped and my bags weren't there I immediately went over to the desk because the plane was going through to Tobago, with my bags still on board ??

The lady looked at my baggage tags and told me I should pick it up at St. Martin. I didn't really believe her but there was nothing else I could do … But it all went well and I could see them unload my bags when we got to St. Martin. Eline was already there, she hes landed 10 minutes earlier, arriving from Curacao, right on schedule. She was a bit emotional... coming back after so many years :-)

Together we got a taxi and went over to Bobby's Marina. Getting on board was quite a surprise!!

When I went down I stepped in the water... salt water. That was not the idea, not at all !!!

I took off my shoes and went looking for the leak which obviously was there. It didn't take long to find it. The sea cock that I had fixed in Brighton hadn't held after all Water was coming quite fast.

When I wiggled the sea cock, it snapped completely and now water was really coming in …

Luckily the plug I have hanging at every sea cock did fit and I was able to stop the leak.

Hmm, when we had a closer look there was around 2 inches of water above the floor boards. That's a lot!! We started pumping, by hand since the bilge pump was completely under water, but it went better using buckets. When we got enough water out, the pump did the rest.

In the mean time I had called Mick, the supervisor of the marina, to ask him if he could lift me out. Since he had no one around to help him, he told me he would help us first thing tomorrow morning.

That was okay, the plug held fine so we weren't sinking any longer.

By that time Frits had called my, Arie and he had missed their connection in Miami. Customs and immigration had taken too long …. and they had missed there flight by 10 minutes. Oh well, I guess that wasn't too bad after all. The four of us might have been too many and we would have gotten in each others way.

Around 21:00 Eline and I had had enough and went out for dinner. The first place we could get to was ' Curry in a Hurry' what turned out to be a very nice local restaurant and the food was good too :-)

Next morning I went over to Mick and an hour later we were on the hard. Andy one of the engineers that was around on a Saturday, looked at it and told me he would be able to help me and replace the hull though fitting. It looked like a classic example of electrolysis that had completely eaten the fitting. Andy also checked all the other fittings and they were all fine. Since we were on the hard, we cleaned the hull. Enough came off to give us a knot or so more in speed :-)

Anyway, I guess we were very lucky after all. If we would have come a day later, the boat might have been completely sunk. Also this is not something you want to have happen mid Atlantic!!

Eline and I spend the day organizing the boat and fix the instruments I had taken home to repair. Nothing seemed to have been damaged by the water. Around 6 pm we went over to have diner and there I got a call from Frits that they had landed. It took them about an hour to get to the marina which is really a 4 minute drive,qa but anyway :-)

Well this was some arrival … and so much for the plan :-) Today we'll go and do some chopping while Andy will fix the fitting. Monday morning we'll be in the water again and off to Antigua.