1800Z, August 6.

With the boat finally finished and positioned in Norfolk I was ready  to start my passage to Horta.  There was no tropical storm activity and none expected in the next 5 days so I decided to make a run for it. On the morning of Aug 2 at 1200Z I set sail for Horta in the Azores. I expect the passage will take 18-20 days. 

I’ve already dealt with rain squalls in the middle of the night, rushing to get sails down with my headlamp on.  Worse were patches of no wind where motoring was the only way to make progress – I hate to run the engine, noisy and hot. Once I had intercepted the Gulf Stream current late the second day things improved. With good wind on a beam reach in the GS current I was getting 9-10 kts SOG (speed over ground), the best way to measure actual progress.

I’ve seen dolphins playing around the boat 3 out of 4 mornings, and a small fish of some sort jumped into the cockpit, threw him back. Only 1 bird spotted.

Last night a tanker came within a mile of me. Not a real hazard since I was tracking him on radar the entire time. Just rare for ships to pass so closely in the middle of the ocean.

Things are running smoothly on board, a few issues with the new genset wiring. It only feeds power to the 120 volt outlets, not the battery charger where I most need it. They acknowledged the mistake but nothing they can do about it with me at sea. Correcting it will be on the project list when I get to Horta. In the meantime the solar panels and a few hours of engine time keep the batteries charged.

I’ve connected with a couple of cruiser nets on the SSB shortwave radio, checking in with my position report and to chat a bit. Small events to break up the day.

As I write this I’m becalmed again running the engine to get to 40N and find some wind. At 1200Z today, 4 days total, I’ve put almost 600 nm under the keel so on average I’m doing ok.

The link to my Predictwind tracking map 

is: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SV_PHYWAVE/