Let's be honest, the middle of the Atlantic isn't exactly a thrill-seeker's paradise. Sure, there's a certain mystique to sailing vast expanses of open ocean, but for a blog post, it can be a bit, well, monotonous. Believe me, I'd much rather be racking my brain for interesting content than living through hair-raising adventures! Calm seas and steady progress are exactly what I like during these passages, even if they don't make for the most exciting storytelling. The middle of the ocean isn't really the place for excitement anyway – better than the edges, at least, where all the rocks are!
But hey, that's the beauty of this journey – sometimes, the uneventful stretches are the most valuable. Clocking over 160 nautical miles a day in the right direction with a favorable following wind – that's a success story in itself! It brings peace of mind, a sense of accomplishment, and the knowledge that we're steadily ticking off the miles on our journey.
We've had an almost uninterrupted blanket of clouds since leaving Cape Verde. While it might not make for the most dramatic visuals, I suspect this cloud cover is actually contributing to our consistent wind. It's acting like a giant sunshade, keeping things cool and preventing the wind from dying down. And this "perfect strength" wind, just what we need for this leg of the trip, shows signs of sticking around for a few more days. And at least we haven't seen any fishing boats for a few days, or cargo ships which is relaxing.
The news of Hurricane Beryl has certainly been a wake-up call. It reinforces our plans to avoid lingering in the Caribbean any longer than necessary and to make landfall further south. Its also great to still be saving our precious diesel. Our perfect situation would be to arrive with our emergency fuel intact.
So, buckle up for a few more entries about steady progress, cloudy skies, and… well, maybe a particularly spectacular sunset to break things up. In the grand scheme of things, these uneventful stretches are what allow us to reach the truly exciting part: the destination!
