377nm S of Bermuda

We left Bermuda at 7pm on Friday night, after meeting up with Richard Jesaitis, our new crew member for the passage to St Maarten. He was able to enjoy Bermuda forabout 30 minutes before joining us to clear customs out. The reason was a weather window looked like it was about to open; a cold front was due to pass over Bermuda in the morning, and we wanted to use it to get south and east, but also to be sufficiently south when it hit so that the impact would be light.

I don't like leaving into darkness, but it's worked really well. In the 24 hrs since we left Bermuda we've clocked up 188nm; I'm pretty sure a boat record for us. Today and overnight have also been fast, reaching breezes, and Richard, Greg and I have been changing gears, reefing and shaking reefs to keep the boat carving along at top speed. And it's so much more pleasant than the run down from New York. For one, it's getting much warmer, so shorts and T-shirt weather (or foulies at night simply because it's been a bit squally), no gulfstream to deal with, and a big factor, it's a full moon so you can see for miles and ride the waves on night watches. Those nights crossing the gulfstream still fascinate me: I've never experienced such darkness!

It's great to have Richard on board. He is an accomplished navigator, and sail trimmer, and he has an intellectual interest in the boat, weather and all that good stuff; and he makes a mean toasted sandwich!

Overnight midnight-3am was my watch. Although Otto can take care of it, I hand steered almost the entire watch, listening to music on my ipod, and roaring down the faces of the big ocean rollers. Absolutely spectacular fun! Right up there with my most memorable sailing experiences (except Greg did point out he could hear my singing in the cabin; I feel bad about that, my singing is not really something you want to put your best mates through).

After consistent 20-25 knt winds this morning that had us frequently in the 8's and 9's, we're now down to 15 knts. The chop is all gone, and we're left with long ocean swells from the NE, and a beautiful sunset among high cumulus clouds. Although they're probably 8 footers, the wave period is so long we just slide up and the pass underneath us without any major motion.

We have some basmati rice on the stove, and we're heating up a chicken tikka that Heidi put together for us in Bermuda. YUM!

So in all, we're having a great passage. 377nm in slightly less than 48 hrs has us almost a full day's run ahead of our plan. We're now 26 degrees north, around 120nm north of the tradewind belt, so all going well we can use that for a fast reach into St Maarten. We'll see how that goes, but that's the plan.

We're now abeam with the top of the Bahamas, or southern Florida, and it feels great. Dark blue water that's 29.1C! But we're also 900nm from the mainland, so it does feel very remote out here! We've only seen two freighters since leaving
Bermuda.